


Cowardice

by sciathan_file



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-07-26 05:19:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 26
Words: 32,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7561963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciathan_file/pseuds/sciathan_file
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the well closes forever, InuYasha must take the slow path back to Kagome.  Along the way, he discovers that some of the greatest acts of bravery may appear on the surface to be acts of cowardice.  </p><p>But there’s one person InuYasha will be a coward for: her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha. I just play in the sandbox when the two page drabble in chapter five burgeons into sixty-seven pages with ideas that won’t leave me alone.
> 
> Beta’d by the Earl of Birkenhead

  1. **_Hope_**



In the beginning, when the well hadn’t brought her back to him, he couldn’t say if he thought the 50th year, or the 100th year, or even the 300th year, would be the worst. If he ever thought of it, he knew that waiting that long was difficult.

No, the first year, the second year, the third year, before he had really _learned_ , before waiting and caution had become habits, carefully ingrained elements of his psyche and being…those were the hardest years of his life. In those years he remained who he was when she had known him, like an unfinished story, passively waiting on the last page for another reader.

In those years, he still had hope.

Hope, as it turned out, was the single most dangerous thing he had ever been given in his entire life.

Hope made him struggle. Hope made him fight. Hope refused to let him submit. Hope burned in him like the certain knowledge that she had been born for him, just as he had been born for her. Hope scorched him like the vow that he would lay down his life to protect her’s. Hope made him hold onto the belief that, just as he cleaved their enemies in two, he could stare down the curtain of time and make it part for him through the sheer determination of his will.

Hope directed his feet to the well every third day in those early years. Three, she had said, while explaining stories from the school thing of hers, was a magic number. He had held onto her magic from another world with everything he had. He held onto the belief and hope that she had taught him.

And, when hope failed him at last, he had to make slow peace with the idea that he would just have to survive. He had managed to live this long with a target on his back and without hope goading him on, what was five hundred more years?

Over the short next few years after his hope had deserted him, a new realization dawned on him: being a _hanyou_ who had lost his home three times—one place, three women—and who lived by fighting with everything in him, five hundred years was impossible. Fighting was no antidote to time. Fighting was, in fact, venom to his system.

All he knew, in all those nights crouched at the well or in the branches of their tree, the Goshinboku, when the leaves turned from golds and reds to greens in a blink of his eyes, was that he wanted to go home. And that home was _her_.

The interim between hope and hopelessness, however, before he had learned what was required to endure getting back to her, was filled by recklessness fueled by despair.

There was nothing during that time that Tessaiga could not overcome. No demon too big. Even on the night of the new moon, he rushed at bandits brandishing a rusty sword, Miroku and Sango hot on his heels trying to tackle him before he did something stupid (even if, arguably, he was already doing something stupid).

Shippou, with his big mouth, had reminded him of who he should be after a particularly stupid stunt that left him bleeding for two or three days on a futon in Kaede’s hut.

“If Kagome were here she’d call you ‘InuYasha no Baka!’”

Then, quietly, Sango sighed, “Kagome-chan would be sad to see you like this.”

Miroku, twisting the bandage just a _bit_ too tightly, quipped, “She would sit you into a hole in the floor.”

Even in her absence, _she_ reminded him who he needed to be. And the hope that lingered on reminded him that _she_ expected him to be someone worth knowing when they met again.


	2. Patterns

**_II. ** _Patterns_**_ **

InuYasha set out to make sure of two things: Firstly, that he’d actually be alive to see her again and secondly, that he wouldn’t embarrass himself when he did.

The first step was to keep busy. He needed to have work and friends.

 _Distraction_ was necessary. Appropriately, other _youkai_ provided him with it.

With Tessaiga in his hands and Miroku’s dubious bargaining power, the power of habit took over. With the monk’s practiced deception and overly expensive _ofuda,_ and with his own sword swinging at some weak demon and with more payment than any of the previous actions deserved, a new pattern was slowly engraved over the old one.

(While he did not miss jewel shards, digging graves, or fighting Naraku: he did miss the feel of her riding on his back…her smell…how her eyes blazed when she got angry and _Osuwari_ ’d him.) 

The new pattern always ended at Kaede’s village. The village he had somehow become protector of…along with his forest, the perverted monk, the demon slayer, the old hag, and the cooking fire.

And sometimes Shippou. But he was off on his own journey now, learning magic with his own kind.

Sometimes even Rin and his bastard brother.

(But never _her_.) 

Eventually, the faces around the fire multiplied thanks to the happy culmination of a certain lecher’s life-long quest (whose lechery InuYasha sincerely hoped was not passed on to the next generation). First, came the two twins who didn’t understand that his ears—his _hanyou_ ears—were neither meant as toys nor handles. Then came their son. With each runt, a new pattern began: Sango’s stew, babies wailing too loudly and at too high pitched for his ears, and meeting with helpless men and women who couldn’t handle minor demons. 

Nights above Sango and Miroku’s hut just watchin’ out…in case…Nights in Goshinboku….Nights as a human surrounded by noise and children and the glow of the cooking fire and his friends. 

(Nights where he never admitted, not to anyone, at least in words, that he missed _her_.)

Time went on. The faces of his companions changed. Sango’s eyes crinkled where her skin bunched up whenever she laughed. Miroku walked with a limp from an unfortunate encounter with a boar demon on the night of a new moon. Sango was forced to fill in for him for a few months to do the bargaining, seeing as no one wanted to bargain with a _hanyou_ for their exterminations. 

Then, Kaede vanished from the habitual mix. She passed quietly in her sleep. They placed her ashes next to Kikyou’s and a new stranger came to heal the sick and keep the shrine. He was on nodding terms with the new _miko_ and, like the rest of the villagers, she tolerated and respected him as the protector of the village.

Sometimes the pattern varied slightly. Sometimes the demons were larger and only vaguely weak. Their claws would come down, Miroku parried with his Shakujo, and occasionally Sango might even lob _Haraikotsu_. Then, sometimes fighting with some scratches and wounds (he tried to avoid holes in his gut…he _mostly_ succeeded), the Wind Scar would rip through the demon and they would all head back for fish or boar or the occasional stew over a fire.

The lecher and the demon slayer added another daughter. Thinking it had been long enough (InuYasha didn’t know that it would ever be long enough), they named her Kagome for a friend they had given up as lost. When she was old enough, he took her for a ride on his back to the branches of the Goshinboku and told her a story he told no one else.

Another son came—their last child.

The children grew up. He and the monk taught them to fight. The youngest once attempted to purify him with an _ofuda_ on a dare from the oldest (not that he admitted it, but it had, at least, _hurt_ ). Sango had thumped them both and threatened them with her dusty _Hiraikotsu_.

Watching them, InuYasha could only chuckle.

Her brood was giving her grey hairs.

His time was spent. The predictable pattern made it seem kinder.


	3. Fade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a warning, (gentle) character death ahead.

**_III. Fade_ **

Time passed, marked by demon guts, grey hairs, and a throbbing in Miroku’s leg when the rainy season was about to come.

Sango was the second to leave. InuYasha couldn’t fight the fever that raged in her body and the body of little Kagome. He had no sword he could swing to heal the sick and by the time his brother came it was far too late.

He got a poisoned hand in his gut for his anger. Unaccustomed as he now was to battling real demons, ones that did more than disturb farmers and village headmen, Tessaiga was easily knocked away.   As he pulled out his claws, Sesshoumaru only said, “Accept it, InuYasha. Your humans will all fade in time.”

Hanging in the air between them was the pale shadow of a little girl, and a truth even Sesshoumaru, Lord of the West, had had to accept. Between that pall and his own inability to fight without hemorrhaging poison-defiled blood, InuYasha let his brother walk.

There had been no one to save him, then. He had crawled back to the village on his own, a trail of blood in his wake. When Miroku’s oldest son had found him in the morning, he could barely meet his eyes.

They buried Sango’s ashes next to Kaede’s and Kikyou’s in the shrine, a gesture of respect for the woman who had helped on the quest for the _Shikon no Tama_ and who had helped fell Naraku. He knew one day, Miroku’s ashes, and perhaps those of their Kagome and the rest of their children, would be buried at her side.

That was time.

And, as time marched forward, InuYasha had to purposefully not notice things.

He never noticed, for instance (he certainly didn’t comment, at any rate) when Miroku started to spend the occasional night with an old widow on the other end of the village. Nor did he notice when he went limping home in the morning, humming to himself and leaning on his Shakujo.

(Once he did raise an eyebrow when he encountered his friend in the early morning. The monk, his hair now greying and his old limp more pronounced as he aged, merely sighed and said, “Comfort and companionship, my friend,” as if that explained everything. Later, much later, InuYasha realized it probably did.)

He didn’t notice when the widow was gone and he and Miroku sat idly in front of his hut, sitting cross-legged with a jug of saké and a silence filled with things that they both didn’t say, while thinking of women that were long gone.

He wished he didn’t notice when the son replaced the father in this ritual, the silence leaden with a pale grief unspoken between them, Miroku’s old bones burned and resting, at last, next to Sango’s.

(If he ever did get back to her, he promised he would notice that spot at the Higurashi shrine. He promised he would pay tribute to whatever god let him tell Kagome what had become of all of them.) 

He made sure not to notice when Miroku and Sango’s son, every bit as powerful as his parents, although not nearly as experienced, did not get as high of prices for the same services that InuYasha and his father had provided back in the day. He supposed there was too much of Sango in the runt for that.

He pretended not to notice that the villagers—the one’s who knew him from the old times and who maybe even trusted him despite what he was—had built a enclosure for the well now that the monk and the demon slayer were gone, simply to give their resident protector a place to go. Also, he suspected, this new dwelling was an excuse for them to keep him farther away from the village now that the people who really understood his presence, place, and history, were swiftly joining history themselves.

He pretended not to notice, too, when the children who had tweaked and screamed their shrill baby screams into his ears throughout their childhood grew too old for “Uncle Inu” and simply called him “InuYasha.” Then they all grew more solemn and more grey around him, while he remained relatively the same, save for a thinning of his face that accompanied a shift from adolescence to adulthood and the development of some very fine lines around his mouth and eyes. 

But, finally, he noticed when, rather than a village that knew him and the established patterns that he had carved into his world, there was now something else. He had no home again and instead, he found himself on nodding terms with everyone, but knew no one. Not really, anyways. By then, the branches of Goshinboku and the little well house had become more his home than anywhere else.

They were the only damn things with any sort of permanence left.

And, one day, walking through the shrine, and staring at the ashes of his friends, InuYasha realized that he was as was as far removed from the time they had known together as _she_ was now, still years into the future. What they had known was ashes. The only difference was that InuYasha had watched it happen. The world had forgotten his friends and him.

But _she_ , he thanked the heavens, remained protected from it all. _She_ , he knew, would never think of time as moving on without her. To her, they would all still be there: Sango, Miroku, Kaede, and him, just waiting at the well, as they always were when she returned home. Waiting, unchanging, _alive,_ until the moment she crossed back into their lives. 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello readers! It has been a long time since I have posted any fic in a public forum, but it is good to be back. As you might have noticed, I'm attempting to post a chapter a day, as everything is written and has gone through at least one stage of polishing. I'll cross my fingers that I can keep up with that schedule...
> 
> Enjoy!


	4. Leaving

**_IV.  Leaving_ **

He never consciously _decided_ he would leave the village. He wasn’t even sure why he left in the first place. Sometimes he told himself he wanted to find Shippou or, maybe even polish up his increasingly rusty skills by picking a fight with Sesshoumaru. If anyone had asked him, he would have probably said _Keh…o_ f course he would come back.

Except that he didn’t return. Well, he came back twice. He never returned to _live_ there anyways.

Now, the village just held Miroku and Sango’s bones and their diluted blood. Not much else remained besides a tree and a well that were the closest things he had to any kind of pathetic home anymore. It was not exactly _unwelcoming_ , but when you knew what welcoming looked like, you could never quite slide back without a touch of regret.

So, he left…a rusty sword and a red robe against the rest of the world.

Alone.

_Just_ , he thought with a pang he tamped down and did not really want to feel, _like it had always been_. 

While that statement had been true once, now, nothing in him could admit that it had become a comforting lie.

***


	5. Chitose I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the vignette that began it all...

**_V.  Chitose I_**  

Sometimes he simply roamed around the countryside, seeing what he could, fighting when he had to, helping villagers where he had no choice. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Despite his best efforts, occasionally he still ran into strange echoes of the past.

Like a single red ball that bounced down the steps of a shrine, followed closely by a little girl in a ragged _yukata_. So intent was the child on chasing the ball that when it came to rest at his feet, she almost ran into him before she realized he was there. For a moment she remained stock still, merely blinking at his feet with her deep brown eyes.

Ball momentarily forgotten, she slowly took in his entire appearance, and then stopped, lingering a few moments too long at his ears, before cocking her head to the side in curiosity.

She blinked at him again—as if in silent contemplation—before recollecting herself with a jerk and launching forward into a formal bow.

“Good morning, _Youkai-_ sama,” she intoned solemnly.

She drew herself up and looked at him intently, awaiting his response.

“Yo,” came his reply, slightly wary in the face of such unaccustomed formality.

She looked up at him hopefully. She made no move to either back away or go forward.

“Can I have my ball back?”

He picked it up, holding it for a moment before asking her, “You ain’t scared, kid?”

The child’s face broke into a gap-toothed grin accompanied by a giggle that seemed to indicate that he had said something she found hilariously ridiculous.

“You don’t want to hurt me,” she stated with supreme confidence. “You’re good.”

He let out a “Keh!” and then, to cover his embarrassment at her statement, InuYasha knelt down, offering the ball out to her. She approached him with absolutely no hesitation, taking it from his clawed hands. She cradled the ball to herself for a moment and then, to his surprise, placed her tiny human hand on his shoulder. Immediately, he felt some strange power pass between them both. He looked up the steps to the _torii_ gates, and remembered _her_ walking through a similar gate, her yellow bag perched on her shoulder…ready to come back through the well with him. Seeing where the child had come from, he really should have known.

_A miko_.

“ _Youkai_ -sama?” Her eyes held something unfathomable, as she removed her little hand to again cradle her ball.

“ _Hanyou_ ,” he corrected her softly, surprised at himself for doing so and not quite knowing why. Then, even more quietly, as if telling a secret, he added, “InuYasha.”

“Chitose!” she answered back, joyous at this small confidence she had been given. Then, her previous look returned and she asked, now hesitant for the first time, “InuYasha-sama….why are you so sad? Who is it you miss?”

He stared at her, not being able to help himself. Then, before he could think to stop his mouth, he rose to his feet again and growled, “What the hell do you know, you damn kid?”

In her urgency to cover her little face with her hands, she dropped the ball to the ground. Chitose was almost to the stairs before she turned around, affected a hasty bow, and called “I-I-I’m sorry!”

As she ran up the steps and through the _torii_ gate, she didn’t bother looking back even once.

His anger fading and shame over his lack of restraint settling into the pit of his stomach, all he could do was stare at the abandoned ball. Again, without really knowing why he should expend the effort, he once again picked it up and slowly made his way up the stairs.

The shrine’s wide courtyard showed no sign of the girl, although InuYasha’s sense of smell indicated she had run through the reed door into the little shrine building. Glancing around, he felt a faint stab of loneliness and homesickness as he noticed a tree, dominating the center of the shrine complex, wrapped in white _shimenawa_ that fluttered gently in the breeze. Larger even than _her_ tree, it made him think of the last time he had really belonged somewhere. Beneath its branches, the shrine’s priest went about his morning duties. The old priest simply looked up at him, a placid wariness in his eyes. He continued sweeping, paying no mind to the visitor, although it was clear he was watching him.

The _hanyou_ advanced towards the old man and noted that, unlike with Chitose, he could smell the barest scent of fear.

He held out the ball.

“I brought this back,” he stated simply.

The priest ceased his feigned disregard. Not extending his hand at first, he looked over his guest. InuYasha felt a small stir of anger as his eyes stared at his ears for a tad longer than was necessary and he frowned.

“For Chitose,” InuYasha clarified, the barest hint of a growl in his voice.

A moment of silent evaluation passed, and the priest reached out for the ball.

“If Chitose-chan allowed you to come here, then you mean no harm.”

InuYasha nodded, wondering, not for the first time, what exactly that girl was. The priest then bowed slightly and took the ball from him.

“Forgive her if she said anything…untoward. Chitose-chan cannot help but see things as they are. She does not say what she does to cause others pain.”

InuYasha glanced briefly over the priest’s shoulder as the reed door flapped in the wind. The faint scent of the strange girl wafted out and InuYasha guessed that she had heard every word of the priest’s gentle censure.

“Keh…don't worry about it,” he mumbled, hoping she was still within earshot.

The Priest nodded slightly and then began sweeping again.

“Please feel free to take what comfort you can from our humble shrine,” he said, ending their conversation.

InuYasha swore he saw the girl’s silhouette behind the door and imagined those big soulful eyes looking at him… _watching_ him. Not wanting to be under that discerning gaze, he did not linger.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Although I'm not telling you the consequences of this meeting until later. :)


	6. Comfort and Companionship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be advised that there is some suggestive content in this chapter.

**_VI.  Comfort and Companionship_ **

The first time was a complete accident.

Living out in the open, alone, reminded him of the days before Miroku and Sango, before Kikyou, even. InuYasha could keep himself alive by hunting, but occasionally he found that villages were willing to give him a small commission for killing whatever _youkai_ —usually an uppity small fry—was currently terrorizing them.

Probably because he kind of looked like those _youkai_ he was exterminating, his commissions were never what he made with Miroku. Or maybe it was because whatever good will he had earned from destroying Naraku had slid into history along with Naraku’s name. Or maybe, not a lot of people trusted the guy with the sword that kind of looked more deadly than what they were fighting, either...

In any case, they usually came to him only out of desperation.

Not that he cared. He didn’t have much of a need for money, and sleeping in a tree never really bothered him anyways.

This particular town had been plagued with a small snake demon. Once he had lured it out, he didn’t even needed to use the Wind Scar to dispose of it. His claws alone would have been more than enough, but he used the sword for show. They offered him a small bag of coins, with a room and a meal for his trouble.

Maybe he was feeling nostalgic for the weak humans. Maybe he had been feeling lonely. Maybe he just wanted to make the village headman (who _reeked_ of a nervousness that had nothing to do with the _youkai_ that had just been exterminated and everything to do with the _hanyou_ in front of him) sweat a bit before he moved on.

He didn’t really know why, but InuYasha took them up on the offer of a room for the night.

Once inside, he looked around the room with some amusement. InuYasha hadn’t slept indoors in more than three years. He didn’t even touch the futon. Like always, he propped his back up on the wall between the door and the window, and leaned on his sword.

When he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine Miroku snoring in the corner, Sango not much farther off, with Kirara curling into her stomach. And, _she_ would be there, in a yellow sleeping bag, Shippou curled up at her feet. He opened his eyes, taking in the empty room once more, and batted the memories back to the past where they belonged.

For the rest of the night, despite the luxury of being sheltered from the cold, he didn’t sleep. In fact, he didn’t do much more than close his eyes.

When the girl stumbled in around midnight, he stiffened and clenched Tessaiga’s sheath. Thinking he was asleep, she came over—a slip of a girl, tears in her eyes, younger than _she_ was when he first met her. Then, without warning, she knelt down and put her trembling head on his knee.

He growled.

“My lord,” she said, looking up at him with wide eyes, “I was sent to…to spend the night with you, my lord.“

Abruptly, InuYasha stood, not so much as moving his hand from Tessaiga. Not understanding the gesture as the threat it was supposed to be, the girl hurried to untie the _obi_ of her short kimono and stood before him in her thin _kosode_ under robe.  

Acting on his first impulse, he grabbed her and roughly turned her around.

“Stop,” he growled. “I don’t want any of—“

“If you send me away they’ll think—“

She lunged at him and attempted to place a trembling hand on his face. Disturbed, he swatted it away.

“No,” he said. Forcefully. “I don’t want—“ _you_ “—that.”

She stared at him, some poor, slack jawed farmer’s girl, and started crying all over again. The salt from her tears stung his nose.

He pointed to the futon.  Then he pointed to the wall he had just left.

“Stay there. I’ll stay here. In the morning, you leave.”

She blinked at him, but did not move. He leaned down to pick up the discarded kimono and handed it at her, while intently focusing on some corner of the room, anything but the half-naked girl in front of him. Hurriedly, a blush coloring her cheeks, she rushed to comply. As she laid down in the disused futon, the smell of her tears periodically wafted over.

“My Lord,” she said, a hitch in her voice.

“Keh! I ain’t no lord,” he growled, once again seating himself against the wall. This time he did not so much as close his eyes to feign sleep, but stared silently at the opposite wall. She raised her head after a few minutes, finding him still awake.

“Well,” she paused, not knowing what to call him, “Thank you…they told me you’d want…”

“People say a lot of shit. Doesn’t mean its true.”

She gulped in a mouthful of air, and asked uncertainly, “Is there anything you want, then?”

Miroku’s voice drifted out of the past to him: _“Comfort and companionship, my friend.”_

“Just…” he hesitated, and even though he knew no one was listening but this strange girl, his voice still came out in a hoarse whisper, “to talk. I want to talk with someone.”

From that night forward, whenever the village headman offered InuYasha lodgings for his payment, he always asked for a girl.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This section was nicknamed "InuYasha and the Prostitutes." :)


	7. Shippou

**_VII.  Shippou_**  

There were very few people left from the old days. 

Sesshoumaru and Shippou were the only ones still alive, so they were the only ones he ran into from time to time. Sesshoumaru…did whatever Sesshoumaru had always done. But, Shippou had surprised him by founding a kitsune school all of his own. Between the kitsune’s work there and InuYasha’s own long ranging rambles across the country, though, they rarely crossed paths.

He knew he _could_ meet with Shippou more often. But he tended not to, because Shippou represented something of a double-edged sword. On one hand, he was one of the only people who remembered Sango and Miroku and Naraku and jewel shards and… _her_ and knew what she represented to him. But at the same time…well, he was one of the only ones who remembered… _her_ and knew what she represented to him.

And _she_ , in some strange way, was always between them.

When they got into their typical squabbles, rarer now than a hundred years ago, they both waited for a reaction that never came from a girl who was not there. Then, both left the encounter angry over things they could not really express.

Shippou missed his adoptive mother.

InuYasha missed his…well, he missed _her_. 

Bonding them together were memories and knowledge. And while that brought them together, it also kept them apart. 

He ran into him by accident, at the well, one spring. A day much like the one when _she_ had left them.

Shippou was playing with a little girl, who looked a good deal like Miroku. When Shippou noticed that InuYasha was there, as well, he nodded. Shippou turned into a bird, now less googly eyed than it used to be and flew to him, arousing admiring applause and laughter from his small audience.

Shippou waved good-bye to the child and the two old friends walked towards the shade of Goshinboku.

The village around them could hardly be classified as a village anymore. The huts they both knew were gone, and the houses stretched on beyond the bounds of the horizon. Even the shrine had been rebuilt and moved, inching closer to Goshinboku and the well, slowly encroaching on what had once been “The Forest of InuYasha.”

Shippou and he sat in what remained of the forest, a campfire between them, although there were no humans to warm.

They sat for a long time in silence.

“I remember…” the kitsune began cautiously, recalling the days when his companion would have thumped him just for mentioning _her._

InuYasha knew exactly what Shippou wanted to talk about. They were the only people left to have those memories, after all.

He also recognized the kid’s caution for what it was (not that he was much of a kid anymore). So, he merely frowned, evidence of what a hundred years does to any hurt and any person. As much as he’d like to believe _she_ was his alone, that just wasn’t true. Hell, _she_ was never really his in the traditional way at all…he never did have the time or the words to clear up that particular mess.

“Yeah…” he responded noncommittally, not exactly permission to speak, but not a denial, either.

When he was honest with himself, he knew he _still_ didn’t have the words.

Staring into the darkness beyond the fire, Shippou said, “You’ll see her again.”

InuYasha merely nodded.

“Keh. ‘Course I will.”

Shippou leaned up against the tree, mimicking InuYasha’s posture from his younger days.

“It’ll be a long time.”

He grunted his acknowledgement.

“InuYasha…?,” he stuck out a fang as he grinned. “Just don’t do anything stupid and get yourself killed.”

_Easier said than done, you brat. You haven’t lived your life with a target on your back…I protected you from that, remember?_

Outwardly, however, he didn’t respond. He just stared into the distance.

“Get some sleep, runt, we’re leaving here tomorrow at dawn.”

At his reply, Shippou smiled in the firelight.

They travelled for a few weeks together before Shippou’s duties called him back. Walking the road through the countryside, heading to Kyoto, InuYasha reflected on the fact that it was kinda nice to have someone traveling with him.

Especially someone who understood.

***


	8. Chitose II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This section contains some foul language.

**_VIII.  Chitose II_ **

It was a chain of pure stupidity. Stupidly inexcusable. During the battle he felt he would blow off steam since it was a long time since he had been able to beat the crap out of anything more than a small fry. But, the bastard got a lucky hit when he turned his back to him.

Damn foolish.

He’d been careless.

And it had to have been a poison _youkai_. And here he was now, with a hole in his chest that was oozing with green and foaming ichor.

_Shit._

He managed to stumble to a tree and collapse onto its roots. Holding onto Tessaiga with white knuckles so at least he didn’t transform, InuYasha watched as the edges of his vision faded to black.

Something familiar brushed against his _youki_. In his current state, it took him a moment to realize it was an aura. It took him a moment further to realize that he was being shaken.

Dimly, he opened his eyes, his mouth feeling dry, as if he had swallowed ashes, and his whole damn body hurt still—damn, he’d forgotten the poison, which wasn’t allowing him to heal as fast as he normally did.

At the center of his vision was a girl with wild hair, bound back against its will…a _miko?_ It was—

_It couldn’t be_ —

“Kagome…?”

The girl frowned sadly as him.

“No, InuYasha-sama…”

_…sama?_  

He studied her, finding that the face held little resemblance to _hers_. It was rounder, more open. The eyes the wrong color, the wrong shape…the scent he was seeking, as polluted with his own blood and the scent of poison that it was, was totally different than that of the girl in front of him.

And yet it was strangely familiar.

Hesitatingly, the strange woman smoothed back hair from his face. He noted, dimly, that his blood had already stained one of the white sleeves of her _miko_ robes and that she was radiating a strong aura of _reiki_.

“Can you walk? I can help you. We need to get you bandaged and get that poison out of you.”

She moved to part his _suikan_ to get a better look. He caught her wrist easily. Sighing, she bit her lip. Idly, between throbs of pain and trying not to pass out again, he took in her scent. There was no fear in her.

“Who are you?” he rasped out.

She smiled, a little sadly.

“Chitose,” she said softly. “You probably don’t remember—“

Despite his pain, he realized that he was near Kyoto and near a shrine. The last time he had been here was more than a decade ago and he’d been avoiding it since because of some local lords who were squabbling for some stupid reason. He glanced at her again. The last time he had seen her, she had been a runt with big eyes who ran and hid after telling him the truth.

He made a derisive noise.

“Kid with the ball. Nosey brat who knew too much.” 

In response to his harsh comments, she smiled brightly.

“Yes!” she said. Then, suddenly, she was all business.

“You will rest in my shrine, InuYasha-sama. Please, help me get you there.”

He scowled at her.

“Knock off the _sama_ shit and I’ll see what I can do.”

Pursing her lips together, she nodded.

She moved to put her arms around his shoulders, snaking a hand beneath his armpits in an attempt to move him. In silence, they limped at a painfully slow speed for some distance until he found a set of steps, capped with a red _torii_ gate.

Chitose glanced up the long flight of stairs, her whole head moving up and down as she looked. Finally, she cocked it side to side.

“Don’t suppose I can lift you?” she asked without much hope.

He growled.

“I ain’t that weak…” Then, almost contemplatively, he added, “But you are.”

She chuckled and eased him up the first step. He hid his grimace of pain as the movement aggravated his wound. They repeated the process several more times before she spoke again.

“I suppose you’re right,” she said softly. “But it would be much easier if I could just carry you up on my back or something.”

He stiffened considerably and, after a small, but significant look, the _miko_ merely worked on getting him up the long set of stairs. After a painful slog to the small shrine, she welcomed him in, sat him on a futon, and ordered him in no uncertain terms to sit up and remove his _suikan_ and _kosode_.

Grumblingly, he complied.

“I’m going to purify the poison,” she said seriously. “Move and I’ll purify you.”

Every part of his instinctual nature bristled at this. At having a _miko_ —but not _her_ —close to him, her palm radiating energy, aimed towards his open wounds. Observing him, Chitose’s eyes grew sad for a moment and, cocking her head to the side, as if in apology, she said in a voice that would have been too quiet for anyone without his sense of hearing, “I’m sorry that I am not her.”

He opted to ignore her as if this was never spoken. Some wounds could not be healed by bandages.

With a deep purplish energy, she called out the _youki_ -infused poison into a pulsating blob between her hands and used her own energy to overwhelm it. It dripped in black droplets down onto the wooden planking of the floor.

Then, taking out linen bandages and a jar of salve so smelly it briefly overcame his nose, she silently began the process of wrapping his wounds.

For once he did not protest the action, even though now that the poison was gone, he could feel his flesh and organs knitting themselves back together, albeit somewhat slower than they usually did. When she was finished, she briefly admired her handiwork, and stood.

He watched her and it was clear she was watching him. She had a look of deep compassion on her face. For a moment, looking at her expression, Chitose again reminded him painfully of _her_ even though they looked nothing alike. He remembered, too, the look on her face the last time he had encountered her. Strangely, he felt as if he owed her a debt.

“I miss someone,” he admitted softly as she busied herself around the room. “That’s why I’m…the way I am.”

She watched him closely for a moment and then nodded. She continued with her tasks.

“Did she die?” she asked softly.

InuYasha shook his head slowly.

“She—she’s not even born yet.” 

Chitose quirked her head to the side, a curious expression on her face.

“Can you get back to her?” Then, with an uncertainty, staring at her neat bandages, she added, “Can you fight that long?”

InuYasha found he couldn’t meet the _miko_ ’s eyes at this question. A hundred years ago, burning with the hope _she_ had left him with, brazen and overconfident from defeating Naraku, he would have answered with unshakeable confidence. Now? Well, fighting _youkai—_ that was one thing. Fighting time, that was another thing entirely. Judging by his condition and the stupidity that had gotten him in it, he wasn’t at all sure. If Chitose hadn’t found him, he could have been a target for whatever small fry lay out there.

“Maybe.”

He knew by her frown, she could read all the uncertainty that lay in him with just that one word. But, wisely, she stopped. Gently, she pressed his shoulders down to the futon and draped a blanket over him.

“One day, you can tell me your story. But, now you must sleep, InuYasha-san.”

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been passed out earlier, but he didn’t need _more_ sleep and almost told her so, but thought better of it.

_Well, at least she cut out the sama_ , he thought.

Uttering a soft, “Keh!” he laid back in his futon and stared at the ceiling. Despite his best efforts, his eyes closed, and for a few hours he drifted into a deep slumber.

*** 

In the suffused glow of first dawn, InuYasha found her curled in robes still stiff with his blood just outside of the room, a tight ball against the cold of the night.

The Tree of Ages that dominated the courtyard wafted in the breeze, the _shimenawa_ swaying in a gentle rhythm with the rustling of the leaves.

For a moment, the tree, the girl…something constricted in him and he had to steady himself. He went back into the room and brought out the thin blanket that adorned his futon, and carefully draped it over her shoulders. She mumbled something incoherent, and, still sleeping, burrowed into the blanket’s warmth.

“Thanks, Chitose,” he quietly told her sleeping form. Then, fleeing the images that threatened to surround him, InuYasha readied Tessaiga to fight whatever lay beyond, and fled into the world beyond. 

***


	9. Twilight of the Gods

**_IX.  Twilight of the Gods_ **

It seemed to him, as the years went on, that Tessaiga got infinitely less action.

Human villages spread, and the forests he used to avoid them grew smaller. Increasingly in his travels, he found that spots he had visited a few months ago were changed beyond recognition: huts sprang up, and the area was filled with runts and their parents going about their daily lives.

The only thing that had changed, really, was the fact no human cared that he was a _hanyou_ , simply by virtue of the fact very, very few of them even knew what a _hanyou_ was. They regarded him as a _youkai_ out of legend or a _kami_.

That he was half-human didn’t seem to matter anymore. 

So, he stuck to his forests, having no trouble surviving on his own. In fact, by staying out of sight of humans he was able to generally avoid trouble altogether. 

Until one night, what he had always defined as trouble found him.

He was sitting in the branches of a tree when he smelled and felt an unexpected _youki_. Strangely, the scent he recognized so well was unaccompanied by any other.

And there he was: his bastard half-brother, walking around in the moonlight as if he still thought he owned the whole damn world. InuYasha put his hand on Tessaiga’s hilt, almost glad that he might have a chance to get in a little fighting after a long dearth.

“InuYasha,” was Sesshoumaru’s greeting. “You no longer reek of humans.”

His lip curling, InuYasha muttered, “And you just reek like usual.”

Sesshoumaru gave him a withering look, and sighed.

InuYasha dropped down from his branch. He remained glaring.

“We are a dying breed,” came Sesshoumaru’s toneless statement. “The humans are displacing us.”

It was something InuYasha _had_ noticed. Most of the weaker _youkai_ had vanished in the intervening years. Stronger ones were rarer and rarer in his travels. No matter where he traveled, in fact, he could go months without so much as detecting any other _youki_ other than his own. Then, for the first time in relation to his own situation, he thought to _her_ time, still in a future that he found too distant to really hope to attain. In that distant modern era, _youkai_ were scarce to non-existent…he had only encountered two there during all of his visits.

And if there were more, _she_ would have told him. Hell, she would have come to him because she’d found them and got into some trouble, and then he’d have to save her. And except for those “test _youkai_ ” she had had to defeat, _she_ had never said anything. 

InuYasha nodded mutely at his elder brother’s statement, acknowledging it, but said nothing.

He could tell him about _her_ time…but it seemed it was going to happen whatever they did. So, he didn’t see what telling Sesshoumaru that he was right would do. That and, just the act of remembering had caused his chest to ache in a way he was now much too familiar with. To actually _talk_ about… _that_ … _her_ ….with Sesshoumaru, no less…well, he needed at least another century between them. 

Acknowledged or not, _she_ was InuYasha’s only and he didn’t want to share with anyone. Not even his faintest memories.

He tried to put those same memories back in the dusty box they had come out of, thinking instead about the last time he had gone into a village. Thinking about how the whole street had cleared until a monk with such a pathetically small amount of _reiki_ had tried to slap a useless _ofuda_ on him.

The stupid idiot had almost died of embarrassment when InuYasha had quirked his thumb at a scroll in his temple and told him he really needed to worry about the _youkai_ who lived in _that_ , which certainly wasn’t as friendly as _InuYasha_ was. Then, he had the poor bastard chanting his last prayers when InuYasha had sliced the pathetic mouse _youkai_ with one half-hearted swing of Tessaiga and then turned to leave.

Trying his damn _ofuda_ again, he had bleated, “But how are you _here_?”

InuYasha had chuckled at the look on his face when he had told him he had walked there, what was it to him?

But he knew exactly what the weak monk had meant.

“Before long they’re gonna think we were just stories,” InuYasha remarked, carefully watching his half-brother. Sesshoumaru’s only response was a slight tug of his lips, betraying a faint amusement at InuYasha’s observation.

The moon shone on the glade, and a faint wind ruffled the silver hair of the two legendary sons of the Inu no Taisho. Ironically, although both were very much alive, they were remembered by the rest of the world as belonging to a long gone and long dead mythos. 

Sesshoumaru put his hand on the hilt of Bakusaiga and turned to look at the moon, his features utterly impassive.

“We will have to choose to die as warriors, the last of our kind, or live on, hidden, as cowards.”

“Keh,” came InuYasha’s reply. “As if _I’d_ be a coward.”

Sesshoumaru held his gaze for a moment. 

“But are you prepared to turn your blade against the humans it was forged to protect? The time will come when you must choose, _Otouto_.”

Then, without a nod of further acknowledgement or a word of farewell, Sesshoumaru turned on his heel and glided off into the darkness of the moonlit forest, leaving InuYasha alone again.

Leaping back to his branch, InuYasha imagined _her_ scent and looked down the stretch of years that still divided them with a rising sense of panic. How could anyone fight a slow creeping annihilation that you couldn’t defeat with physical strength? How could he get to a world where _youkai_ didn’t exist…let alone _hanyou?_

It was easy for Sesshoumaru to say there was a choice. 

A powerful _dai-youkai_ like Sesshoumaru could transform, changing his appearance to hide and blend in. _Hanyou_ , by nature, were denied that ability. InuYasha could no more change his ears than Sesshoumaru could change the fact that he always acted like a bastard.

He could stay and hide in the forests, sure…but he had seen how many forests still existed in her world. Once those were gone…could he live in a world full of humans?

Thinking about the differences between the two worlds he had traveled between with _her_ , thinking about red baseball caps and cars and stores and hard roads and…He sighed. He was a _hanyou_ who could not hide and with that fact came a disturbing question: If he could sweep all those years aside and get to _her_ …where, in that world, was he himself more than just a story from the past?

How did the things _she_ called “fairy tales” live on after they were supposed to end?

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to my beta, "Sesshoumaru is the Chuck Norris of InuYasha."
> 
> I'll leave you with that deep reflection on his character.


	10. Her Voice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Desperate times call for desperate vocabulary. This chapter features some explicit language and violence.

**_X.  Her Voice_ **

If they had come any other time…but, _no,_ they came when he was fucking blind, deaf, and weak. He didn’t smell them, didn’t sense them, didn’t even hear them.

The first indication that they were even there was a bullet tearing through his back and erupting out his front, handily knocking him from the branch he had perched on. Fighting to stay conscious, he had no time to curse the new moon or the fact that he was weak and useless as a human. The only real thought InuYasha did have was that his arm—his sword arm—was not supposed to bend beneath him at that angle.

The leader of the robbers then plucked Tessaiga from its sheath and let out a laugh. He gave an experimental slice its dull blade at his victim’s exposed throat. Tessaiga didn’t do more than knick a drop of InuYasha’s blood.

“Useless,” he said with a smirk, and then cast the blade and its sheath down in the dirt.

“Bastards,” InuYasha barely managed.

This token resistance garnered him only a dark chuckle.

Dimly, InuYasha realized that the three or four of them were picking through his robes. They found the small leather pouch that he kept tinder in and dipped their greedy fingers into it. InuYasha knew they would not find anything they were looking for: he didn’t have any need for human valuables and didn’t carry any.

The robber that held his tinder pouch emptied it out, and realizing it held no coins whatsoever, scowled at the group’s leader. 

“Nothing, boss” he stated, flinging the pouch so that it landed just short of Tessaiga’s naked blade. And, knowing the kind of scum that they were, InuYasha knew exactly what would happen next…what kind of punishment they’d give him for not being worth their bullet or time. But, he was a pathetic _human_ with a hole in his _chest_ and he couldn’t so much as manage to sit up, let alone fight them off with his one good arm.

He felt the kick to his head that left his all too human ears ringing. Instinctively, he tried to roll into a ball, but the motion cause the wound in his chest to pull dangerously, gore welling up and coating his _kosode_ and _suikan_.

Even with his weak human nose, InuYasha could smell his own blood.

More seeped out as kicks and punches rained down on him. He let out a groan, helplessly, as the robbers moved to punish him further.

He wasn’t sure when it stopped, wasn’t sure when he passed out, wasn’t sure when they left him for dead. He almost wasn’t sure of who he was or what had happened to him when he awoke, still in darkness.

All InuYasha knew was that he couldn’t move. Not even to crawl.

While he was lucky they didn’t take Tessaiga, it was next to useless to him in the current state he was in. If anything else came, be it another bandit or even a weak _youkai_ , he would die with only a pathetic whimper. His only choice was to wait for dawn and the return of his _youki_ and hope he lasted until then. Hell, he was so far gone that he didn’t even know if _that_ would save him.

With Tessaiga left where it was, he might just transform straight away and then have an even more terrible set of choices: lose his humanity or lose his life.

If the sound his stupid lungs were making was any indication, he didn’t have a good deal of hope that it actually would happen that way. 

And any of his choices lost _her_.

In short, he was _fucked_.

InuYasha closed his eyes, just trying to breathe and to keep his blood in his body rather than leaking outside of it. In the dark rustling of the forest, he almost felt as if he could hear voices he hadn't heard in more than a century. Almost as if the _bouzu_ and his wife were leaning, invisible, right over him and it was like any other night of the new moon. They whispered near him, inaudibly. _If I weren’t human_ …he thought, straining to listen and understand. And then, as if fate were having a good laugh at him, he heard _her_ voice, too.

It was murmuring near his ear. So close he could have touched her if he could only just reach out.

He just couldn’t open his eyes to see her. They, like all of his limbs, were suddenly too heavy.

She was talking to him, in low tones. Her voice was low and soothing and he felt himself dropping off…darkness gathering around him and her voice leading him there, in soft, faint murmurs he couldn’t make out.

That voice…that voice he had ached for, lulled him softly to sleep.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, yes. 
> 
> My darling readers...that really is where I'm going to leave you. 
> 
> *Smiles serenely*


	11. A Wish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some gore.

**_XI.  A Wish_ **

It was chance alone that had brought him there.

Or, as it would seem, a strange kind of fate.

When he had found him, InuYasha was a hair’s breadth from death. His blood, his tainted inheritance, was thick in the air and drawing wild creatures to him. Pathetically, he could not so much as raise a single hand in his own defense.

Looking at him, he could see no trace of their honored father in him, just the _taint_ that clung to him and made him pathetic. His half-brother lay there curled like a babe in the womb, insensible to the greater world.

_Weak._

Putting his hand on the hilt of one of his swords, Sesshoumaru toed the mass at his feet with his boot. Without resistance, InuYasha crumpled onto his back, displaying a body that was slicked with blood and smelled of death. His eyes, usually a reminder of their father, slid open. They were dark, glassy, and unfocused.

It seemed InuYasha was no longer in possession of his mind, either, for he began speaking incoherently.

“Jus’…jus’ lemmie see…”

Was he _begging…?_

Such weakness. He had clearly been defeated.

It was fitting for him to die for his weakness. For his tainted blood.

It was true the more he looked: InuYasha had earned his death.

Sesshoumaru stood straight over his half-brother’s prone form, drawing his sword. 

“Tell me what it is you wish,” Sesshoumaru intoned to the weak being at his feet.

Dumbly, the dark human eyes struggled to focus and something in his pathetically human throat made a quiet rattling noise.

“Ka-Kago…me.”

Sesshoumaru hid his surprise. 

The _miko_. A name he had not heard in at least a century. His brother, it seemed, had yet to accept the impermanence of humans.

They would all fade. He had told him that the first time, when the slayer had died. InuYasha, unsurprisingly, had not listened.

“I jus’—“ the human’s eyes were closed again. His breath came out in shallow gasps and dark liquid bubbled on his lips as he spoke.

He even refused to accept his own impermanence.

Such arrogance: that a mere _hanyou_ could last so long when their world was dying around them? That he would live on when purer blood ran cold and vanished from the earth? Did his brother think it possible that he could fight and overcome time for something as insignificant as one human girl?

Not even Sesshoumaru himself had been capable of that.

_And yet…_

His half-brother’s dark eyes, fever bright, struggled to focus. His voice struggled to plead. InuYasha struggled to cling on, so humanly, so greedily, to his unworthy existence.

“See her…aga…”

For a girl. For a single, human girl.

Sesshoumaru looked beyond the canopy of leaves to the sky beyond. It would still be more than a few hours until the sun rose. Until his weak brother was able to benefit from his father’s blood. 

“One…more…time…”

The words came as thick, wet bubbles.

He raised his sword and swung at the imps of the Underworld who were gathering, ready to take the soul that would shortly be theirs. The shallow breaths his half-brother was taking were now filled with a gurgling. As the hours passed by, accompanied only by the slow sound of InuYasha’s blood as it dripped into a shallow puddle that pooled beneath him, Sesshoumaru kept the minions of the Underworld at bay.

For the benefit of his weak and pathetic brother, he wielded Tenseiga aloft, warding death away with the legacy their father had left him.

As tendrils of light reached their fingers through the undergrowth, Sesshoumaru stopped, putting the _katana_ back in its sheath.

A faint pulse of _youki_ emanated from the body at his feet. Their father’s blood rushed back, transforming the tainted dark colors to the silver and amber of their esteemed father. InuYasha lay there for a long time, his breathing evening slightly. Sesshoumaru merely stood over him, unmoving and unspeaking, his hand still on Tenseiga’s hilt.

The dripping of blood, loud to his sharp hearing, slowed. The rasp of failing lungs and shake of the death rattle ceased.

“Tessaiga…” InuYasha croaked.

Sesshoumaru picked up his father’s other fang before sheathing the abandoned blade. The burn of the barrier on his hand was a minor inconvenience. He tossed it towards his brother. InuYasha caught it, inelegantly, in his now clawed hand, his knuckles whitening as he grasped the magnolia wood sheath tightly. Even with the return of his demonic energy, his shaking hand rattled the sheathed _katana_.

InuYasha let out a sigh of something like relief, which turned into a hacking cough. He rolled aside with a groan and spat out a mouthful of blood.

Disgusted, Sesshoumaru turned to leave.

He had done what was necessary.

His voice drifted back as he left, “Seek your foolish wish, if you can, _otouto_.”

He was long gone when his brother pulled himself into a sitting position, still clutching his father’s sword to him, still shaking as his _youki_ slowly knit back torn flesh and muscle and organ, and responded hoarsely, “Yeah, brother, I owe you.”

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See...I maybe made it better...?
> 
> Smiles serenely.


	12. The Coward's Way

**_XII.  The Coward’s Way_ **

Kyoto was quieter these days, as the human government had moved to somewhere around Kaede’s village, eating up his forest and his history along with it. InuYasha had heard the Emperor was still around somewhere, but he had never been curious enough to find out. As a being of legend, he didn’t really care about human politics except when they involved a bunch of humans killing one another. And, being a being of legend, he never really went _into_ Kyoto or any other village or town these days. He just clung to the outside portions that were still a bit wild and edged by forests or open tracks of rice paddies.

These were places where he could pretend time hadn’t passed for a bit. Walking in the darkness—he didn’t move around during the day near any inhabited places anymore—he walked over pathways that had become strange and foreign to him in the uncountable years. Some were already unfamiliar after only a handful of years.

In truth, he wasn’t sure why he had come here again. He knew his destination, but it seemed stupid that nostalgia had brought him here more than anything. What or who he was looking for might be long gone.

And, being a being of legend seemed to have distinct drawbacks: it was almost impossible to talk with anyone anywhere anymore. At least people that weren’t legendary themselves…not that he wanted to talk to any of them anyways.

In the moonlight, the _hanyou_ mounted the steps and passed the _torii_ gate, which looked black instead of red in the surrounding gloom. There was no one around. He stood in the middle of the shrine, and coming to a decision, found a sturdy looking branch in its sacred tree that he leapt into for the night.

A woman in the traditional robes of a _miko_ , younger, but not childish, square and sturdy, her messy hair bound back in the traditional tie, entered the shrine grounds at morning’s first light. She squinted up at the tree.

She was staring at him… so he stared back.

Frowning and doubling backward with a hint of alarm, she brushed aside the reed mat hanging in the doorway and rushed back inside. InuYasha braced himself to flee. If the person he wanted to see didn’t come soon, he was ready to run away as fast as he could go. Several minutes passed before the strange woman came out again, this time with another woman who wore a plain _yukata_ on a frame that was shrunken and shriveled with age. She leaned heavily on the shoulders of the younger woman. Together they made their way to the base of the tree.

The elderly woman looked up and, curiously, cocked her head to the side. InuYasha, still tense, looked at her, and in the ruin of her beauty, found someone he knew.

“Yo,” he greeted softly. 

She bowed, stiffly and, knowing her, probably a good deal less deeply than she wanted to. She said in a low, gravelly voice, “InuYasha _-san_ , you honor me again with your presence.”

The younger woman, her eyes wide and mystified, looked from the old woman to the creature of legend sitting in the shrine’s sacred tree. She stared at his ears with an open mouth. The older woman swatted her gently, so she stopped catching flies. 

“InuYasha- _san_ , this is my daughter, Chieko. Please excuse her timidity, she has never seen _hanyou_ or _youkai_ in her lifetime.”

InuYasha nodded at her and then jumped down. 

“Good to see you again, Chitose.”

The old woman smiled as if the years had never passed. As if she was still as young and hearty as he appeared. Her daughter’s mouth dropped open again at the casual way in which he had addressed her mother. She was all the more astounded that her mother didn’t seem to care about being addressed that way either.

InuYasha smirked at her.

“I don’t suppose you’d like something to eat…? You left in such a hurry last time and have since neglected to return.”

InuYasha didn’t miss the note of accusation in her tone. Not that he blamed her…he _had_ run out early last time he saw her…decades ago.

He scoffed in response, and mumbled something about being busy. Then, the old woman’s expression softened as she said, much more quietly, “ _Although_ , I am very happy that you have arrived in one piece on this particular visit.”

She quietly gave him that _look,_ and again, he had the uncomfortable feeling that she was looking through and into him and into places that he had let get dusty with memory.

Meeting his eyes, the old woman remarked, “You still have a story to tell me.”

Mutely, he nodded.

“You can feed me and we’ll talk,” he said grudgingly.

The daughter, who had been bug eyed throughout what she no doubt thought was a very strange encounter with a man with strange ears (he noticed her staring at them when she didn’t think he was looking), nonetheless allowed this _hanyou_ to support her mother, as they walked back to their hut.

“You’re still weak,” he joked to Chitose.

“It would help if you could carry me on your back,” she said, teasingly. InuYasha, smirking, simply scooped the elderly woman up in his arms, and whisked her into her own house, leaving a deeply confused daughter in his wake. They ate rice and some grilled fish, and then the daughter excused herself to go about the shrine’s business. She fetched a broom and disappeared as fast as humanly possible out the door.

Chitose chuckled briefly and then they both sat in silence for a long while.

She looked up at him.

“She hasn’t been born yet, I suppose?”

InuYasha, keeping his expression as neutral as he could, shook his head.

“Maybe three hundred fifty more years or so?” he mused quietly.

At her surprised expression, he growled, “Keh…”

Chitose willfully crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’ve had _years_ to wonder about it.” For a moment he saw in her the curious little girl with a ball. Something in his chest tightened that hadn’t done so in a very long time. She paused and her voice grew softer. “I’m an old woman with a short time left. Give me some peace, InuYasha- _san_.”

“Knock out that _san_ shit and I’ll talk,” he said with mock irritation. Chitose understood and smiled.

Probably not doing it well, and definitely not using language anyone would say was _nice_ , but telling the story nonetheless, he told her a strange tale that started with a gem, and a _miko,_ and almost seemed to end with a fifty-year sealing. He admitted that, perhaps, this was the one thing that had probably saved his life, and might have been the luckiest thing that had ever happened to him. Then, he told her a story about a second life: that same damn gem, but broken this time, along with a kitsune, a monk, a _taijiya_ , and a girl who came through a magic well from the future, whose name he consciously said for the first time in decades, haltingly and with great effort. He told how they defeated an evil _hanyou_ and the same wish that saved them all took away the girl from the future that he loved. (He never actually admitted his feelings to the elderly _miko_ , but he could see that Chitose, like always, just _knew_ ). The power in the well had faded, and everything else he had known since had also faded. How it was just him and the kitsune left now. He told her about hope and losing it, and being better off without it, (He knew she also saw in him the admission he was _not_ making: that he hoped desperately to see her again. _She_ had taught him to cling desperately to that hope no matter what his stupid mouth said. In his deepest of hearts he held onto this one thing.)

He admitted that aside from the kitsune and his bastard half-brother, he had only really talked to, well, _her_ in the past few decades. And she already knew how well _that_ went…He even admitted that this was probably the longest conversation he had had with anyone since drinking saké with Miroku’s oldest son some hundred and twenty odd years ago. 

In response to this story, Chitose merely got to her feet slowly and shakily, waving him away when he got up to help her and moved to his side. She knelt next to him, and as if he were a child, brushed the hair out of his face. She put a hand on his shoulder. Her hand was small like a child’s, but leathered and wrinkled.

There was a strange feeling of power that connected between them.

“You know you won’t make it,” she said simply, looking him dead in the eyes. “You don’t think you can survive that long.”

In the simple connection between them, was the terror of the new moon, of the vanishing world of _youkai_ , of battles he might not win, of simply being a _hanyou_ with a target on his back. He thought then about Sesshoumaru’s warning: that he had to either make a last-ditch noble sacrifice and all that, or find some way to stop fighting, risk being a coward, and _live_.

Blending in, even if he wanted to, wasn’t really an option. Which meant that not fighting was going to be increasingly difficult. And, most likely, not fighting meant dying. But then again, fighting could mean dying, too. If you had to choose between dying and dying, it wasn’t much of a choice at all.

The old priestess knew that, too.

Hope, he knew, was a poison. And InuYasha, in these moments when he was being honest with himself, really wasn’t sure he could last that long. He had been _lucky_ , certainly. But he also knew that luck didn’t last forever. Just wishing and hoping alone that he would see _her_ again wouldn’t make it happen. 

Feeling something prick in his eyes as he looked at the old _miko_ , he nodded, mutely. Then, slowly, almost hesitatingly, she put her arms around him, and held him. He stiffened, but didn’t fight her.

Half-heartedly, he reasoned that it was more for the old hag than for him, anyway…

Then, she rose, smacking away the clawed hand that came out to steady her.

“Don’t run off, InuYasha,” she ordered. “I need to think, and this old head of mine doesn’t work as well as it did in my youth. If you run off, I’ll be forced to march my aching bones down all of those steps to find you again, so I can tell you what I’ve thought.”

Not sure quite how to react to this, he said simply “Keh! As if a weak human could catch _me_.”

She nodded in violent agreement.

“Such a noble one as you would _never_ take advantage of a weak, old human like myself.”

And just like that, Chitose made him honor-bound to stay and gave him a temporary home.

It had been so long since any such arrangement had existed for him that InuYasha didn’t quite know what to do. So, he went back to his old patterns. He laid himself out on the _tatami_ mats of the hut, and insulted her as she went about her business.

The next day, he brought her fresh-caught fish and freshly cut firewood, before continuing the same pattern of watching and insulting.

Chitose chuckled good-naturedly, and insulted him right back, a glimmer in her eyes.

***


	13. The Twice Sealed

**_XIII.  The Twice Sealed_ **

Chitose, stirring her stew and sorting her herbs, and doing whatever it was old women did to keep themselves busy, didn’t tell InuYasha any more of those _thoughts_ he was staying for right away. Rather, the _hanyou_ and the old _miko_ spent most of their time in companionable silence that was occasionally broken by her strange questions.

She wanted to know how Kikyou had sealed him the first time. Where he had been. How he had awoken. She wanted to know about _her_ time and _her_ shrine and what kind of powers she had. Wanted to know about the well and what it was made of, which led to more questions about Goshinboku. She even asked about such strange topics as Tessaiga, his old man, Totosai, and for some reason, the bastard Sesshoumaru. She once even asked him to explain “ninja food.” 

He kept asking her why and she would say it was part of her damned thinking. Chitose, crafty woman that she was, would never tip her hand and tell him what any of that had to do with what she was actually thinking about.

The old _miko_ finally spoke about _those_ thoughts in the third week he stayed with her. He had lain down on the roof to watch the stars, like he had done long ago at Kaede’s, and she sat on the edge of the hut’s wide raised porch humming some sad song to herself. 

Then the humming stopped. He checked to make sure she hadn’t fallen asleep or died. Instead, her face was full of her damned thoughts again.

However, this time she told him. 

“I think, InuYasha, you are right that you can’t get to your woman as you are. And since you cannot arrive in the form you are in currently, you must change _what_ you are.” 

He scoffed and repeated “ _Your woman…_ ” in a tone dripping with disdain. It made him think of Kouga, talking about _her_ like that. Grumpily, he responded, “You know her name.”

Chitose ignored this and waited for him to come back to what was actually under discussion. Together, in silence, they watched as an evening breeze gently swept through the branches of the shrine’s sacred tree.

“Oi, Chitose,” he said at last. She responded with a grunt of acknowledgement. “You thinking you can send me on in _Sanskrit_ and reincarnate me or something at the right moment? Don’t you need some kind of monk for that?”

“ _Samsara_ ,” she corrected with a full-throated chuckle. “And no, I have no intention of killing you off and I don’t claim power over the Buddhist Wheel of Reincarnation. What I meant is that you can’t bet on mortality. As hotheaded as you are, sometime you’re going to get yourself killed.”

InuYasha sighed dramatically.

“I’m still here, ain’t I? Besides, you’re talking in riddles, woman. Are you so old now you’ve gone senile?”

She was silent for a moment. When the old woman spoke again she gave a precise weight to each of her words. He listened with growing confusion.

“What I mean, InuYasha, is that, perhaps, I could make you a _kami_. Then you would be able to last for a very long time in relative peace.”

The _hanyou_ dropped down to face the priestess, looking her straight in the face at a close distance. She moved farther backward as he angled his head in towards her, as if he was trying to get a good look inside her skull to make her thoughts make sense to him. He considered physically tapping her forehead, too, just to see if that would shake loose the version of Chitose that had at one point made _sense._ Unfortunately, she seemed to think that what she had said was perfectly sane.

“You _have_ lost you mind,” he concluded sulkily.

“ _InuYasha…_ ” she answered with mild irritation. Scoffing, he moved backwards and sat on his haunches, still watching her with a scowl on his face.  

“I don’t mean a real _kami_. I mean, you would be this shrine’s _kami_. _Temporarily._ ”

He looked blankly at her.

“Never heard of a _hanyou_ _kami_ …” his voice was suspicious. “I think your old brain has _definitely_ stopped working, Chitose.”

He nodded his head to emphasize his conclusions. The old priestess sighed, and carefully explained, “I could seal you within the shrine grounds and hide you from view. You could sleep as a shrine _kami_ until it was the appropriate time to wake you. This knowledge can be passed down from generation to generation by the shrine’s guardians. They, my descendants, that is, will watch over you, at least if I have anything to say about it.”

InuYasha stared.

“The problem is that you can’t be visible for that length of time, and that the sealing would have to be done on a Tree of Ages so you don’t die in other unpleasant ways.”

InuYasha couldn’t help but remain staring.

“You’re talking about _sealing_ me…to a tree… _again…_ and pretending I’m a… _kami?"_  

She nodded.

“Okay, wench, let’s just ignore all the ways that I end up dead for completely stupid reasons here…I think I’d rather spend an eternity locked in a box in your shrine than be _sealed_ again.”

The old _miko_ merely gazed placidly back, refusing the rise to the bait.

“Tell me, InuYasha, is this Kagome worth it to you?”

He sputtered before his incoherent noises resolved themselves into a half-hearted “ _Keh!”_ Then, he simply got up and turned towards the door. Without so much as another word, he began bounding off into the night.

“InuYasha!” Chitose called out after him.

He simply yelled back, “I need to think about this!” and was gone.

***

InuYasha stayed away for five days before coming back. Chieko nearly tossed a bowl of stew in his face when he stormed back into the hut on the fifth night, without so much as uttering a warning.

“Yo,” he said in a low voice when he was already well inside the hut, nodding at the _miko_ and her daughter. Chitose sighed, raised a censorious eyebrow at him, and calmly handed him a bowl of stew.

“I got something to help,” he said without preamble, dropping into a cross-legged position on the floor the wooden bowl still clutched in one clawed hand.

In the morning, the old priestess found out what that “something” was. He had brought her a rather large branch of a tree.

InuYasha explained that had made a short trip to the bustling metropolis that had once been Kaede’s village and was now the seat of government affairs, among other things. To his lasting relief, a small shrine had sprung up there, in approximately the same place that _her_ family’s shrine was in the future. Even more surprising was the fact that the well house the villagers had made for him many years ago was still standing. During the day he had stayed in the well house leaned up against the old well (which he didn’t dare jump into for fear of stranding himself in some other time where _she_ was missing.). Then, when all activity at the shrine had ceased, he found a sizable branch of Goshinboku, made short work of it with his claws, and set about trying to get back to the outskirts of Kyoto with a giant hunk of wood while avoiding all humans.

“You can’t seal me to your living tree,” he said, without looking at her. Using his claws, he was trying to break the branch into rough-hewn boards. “Someone is going to come along and unseal me before long or kill me or something. I’d have to hide.”

The words lodged in his throat: _Like a coward._

“InuYasha,” she said, inspecting it, “you realize that you will wither and die if you are not sealed to a Tree of Ages.”

InuYasha kept about his work, still not looking at her.

“This is wood from the tree I was sealed to the first time,” he explained at length. “It is the same Tree of Ages that grows in _her_ time. Same thing the well is made out of, too. It may not be living wood, but it’s the next best thing.”

The old woman frowned.

“And what do you intend to do with that?” she asked.

“Make a box for a shrine _kami_ ,” he said.

Chitose’s eyes widened.

“You realize that it might not have the same properties as the living tree…you could awake vastly weakened from your sleep…if it works at all.”

InuYasha continued to amass his boards and then, finally looked the old priestess in the eyes.

“It’ll work.” 

She found there only a sort of grim determination. He shrugged and went back to his work.

“Hiding and weak is better than dead.”

*** 

It turned out, however, that Chitose had never actually learned to fire an arrow. Her daughter could, but Chieko’s spiritual power was such that she probably couldn’t even purify a runt of a pathetic rat _youkai,_ let alone seal one.

At least something was going according to plan: InuYasha looked at the box he had made from the wood of Goshinboku and chuckled darkly. Sometimes he felt like he was making his own coffin. Well, being put in a box was probably better than hanging on a tree, he reasoned. At least when he got out of the box he would get back to _her_ again…If everything went as planned.

_If._

He had a wide and thick board that would go under his heart where the arrow would pin him, so there was no risk of knocking the arrow out if the box shifted somewhat. If he was going to die in a box beneath a shrine anyways, he didn’t want it to be in such a thoroughly stupid way. Now, they just had to find a way to seal him when the only person who had the spiritual power to do so couldn’t fire an arrow, and the girl who could lack the spiritual powers to seal a jar.

In the end, InuYasha pretty much had to seal himself.

He lay in the box, and Chitose, clutching her borrowed arrow knelt beside him, a grave expression on her face. Then, she channeled her _reiki_ into the arrow and held it just over his heart.

“Are you sure, InuYasha?” she asked, her wizened hands trembling with the effort.

Physically, she was weak. But in other ways…in the way she offered assistance to a _hanyou_ that had shown up with a burden she could see, in her compassion, in her assurance that her line would, generation after generation, protect him…she was strong.

Strong like _her_.

And, looking at the old woman in front of him, he was reminded of that girl in her strange _kimono_ with her “tests,” who stared down Sesshoumaru and Naraku unblinkingly, who protected everything she had with everything in her, who had had the same compassion for someone like him. He thought about _her_ smile, and _her_ laugh, and the face she made when he said something stupid.

“I want to see her again,” he said honestly.

It might, in fact, be the last thing he would ever say.

It was his hands, full of _hanyou_ strength, that covered Chitose’s small, terribly weak human ones, and drove the arrow into his flesh. As the arrow found its mark, the old _miko’_ s hand touched his face, and he felt the strange warmth spreading through him.

The last thing he saw before the darkness took him was Chitose’s smile.

*** 

Word spread in the small village on the outskirts of bustling Kyoto that the young _miko_ , Chieko, had managed to seal a dangerous _youkai_ with her bow and arrow. Lured mainly by curiosity, they came to see the box and the strange figure in it with his silver hair and dog like-ears.

When he was asleep in his state of living death, Chitose had removed his sword and set it aside, giving her daughter instructions about for do with it when time and curiosity (and, Chieko knew, even Chitose herself) had passed the shrine by.

A traveling monk offered to seal the box shut with some holy _ofuda_. Chieko, was a nod from her mother, allowed him to. Then, so that the _youkai_ would never be released, the villagers worked to put up a holy shrine around the strange box.

When rumors of a sealed _youkai_ had become stories of a powerful _kami,_ said to have powers of matchmaking over those who had impossible loves, it was Chieko’s grandson who placed the sword in what had become the _honden_ of the shrine as its _shintai_ , the _kami_ ’s sacred object. Curiously, the custom of wrapping it in sacred cloth was never performed and the _katana_ was left naked. At festivals, when it was carried out in its portable shrine, people would occasionally look at it a bit strangely. Once, a traveling monk had even drunkenly warned them that there was something very wrong—almost _demonic_ —happening with their _shintai_.

(He was taken care of by the further liberal application of saké by the shrine’s head priest, which made him doubt that he could have ever felt a demonic aura from such a holy object, and in turn, made others who happened to hear his slurred story doubt _him_.)

Meanwhile, the shrine’s guardian family, who would become the Hashimoto family after the Meiji Restoration, circulated tales to the shrine’s visitors of a _kami,_ born in a time before his fated love.

However, in private, when the members of the Hashimoto family were alone, they passed down the true history of a _youkai_ named InuYasha, who was sealed beneath their floor for reasons that didn’t quite make sense to them. Thus, the details were lost a little more with each successive generation, until all they were sure of was that it had to do with love and a _miko_. The protection and care of this _youkai_ had been entrusted to the Hashimoto Shrine by an ancestor whose name had been lost to history sometime in the Edo period. 

The Hashimoto family legend declared that, in addition to guarding their strange shrine “ _kami_ ,” one day, someone of their line would also have the responsibility to revive him.

However, each keeper of this strange history never quite imagined that it would actually become _their_ responsibility…

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes, dear readers...that really happened. :)


	14. The Watcher

**_XIV.  The Watcher_ **

Chihiro was contemplating the strange events of the last few months, wondering why the Emperor had ever wanted to leave Kyoto for Edo. Thinking these thoughts and sweeping the courtyard, she didn’t notice her twilight visitor until he was standing, ethereally and silently, a few feet away from her and her musings. It took one look and one feel of his aura to realize exactly what he was.

Of course, she had memorized the old stories, then repeated them back to her grandmother and after that her mother. But he…he was something _different_. She was one of the few who knew that, in the old days, _youkai_ really had existed. Chihiro also knew that in very rare cases, they _still_ existed. 

She knew this because she was well aware that the shrine’s _kami_ was not, indeed, a _kami_ in the traditional sense.

But knowing that the shrine _kami_ was a sealed _youkai_ and meeting face to face with a live and very free _youkai,_ whose _youki_ throbbed about him in almost acidic green halo (one her mediocre _reiki_ would never be able to overcome), was really, really, quite another thing.

Luckily, aside from her _youkai_ visitor’s taciturn gruffness, the tall figure with the crescent moon on his forehead didn’t seem very interested in killing her. Murder might, she reasoned, soil his pristine, white clothing.

She thanked the _kami_ and fate for this.

“He is here,” the _youkai_ stated when he arrived with what she supposed counted for confidence, not bothering to clarify who “he” was at all. Then, the tall, silver haired man swept past her, toward the shrine’s larger than usual _honden_ , the building that housed the _kami_ and his _shintai_ …the object that attracted his divine energy. Chihiro protested the stranger’s intrusion into the sacred space, but he ignored her utterly, not even batting an eye to indicate that he had been spoken to. He opened the door with no regard for her outrage. 

By the time she managed to catch up, the tall _youkai_ was staring at the shrine’s _shintai…_ apparently the sealed _youkai’s_ sword, with narrowed eyes. 

For a moment, Chihiro thought he would grab it. Instead, he grabbed the floorboards and with a surprisingly elegant movement, had carved up a large hole in the floor.

“Show me,” he said.

He gestured to the box just below the level of the floor, sealed with yellowing _ofuda_.

“Who are you?” she demanded, her voice trembling, undermining her conviction.

“That is unimportant,” the _youkai_ responded.

She turned to leave, acting braver than she felt. “Remove the _ofuda_ yourself, then.”

Even as strong as he was, he couldn’t do it, she knew.

She felt the silver haired _youkai_ ’s aura flare behind her.

“I wish to see InuYasha,” he stated not so much as raising his voice, but nonetheless seeming like he had shouted a command at her. Then, as if it explained something, he stated, “I have a claim on him you could not begin to fathom, human. I have found him and wish to see him.”

It was his use of the name that caused Chihiro to turn around. As far as she knew, only the shrine guardians had ever known the name of the sealed _youkai_ beneath the floor. None of the shrine guardians could quite explain why he had been sealed there anymore, but all the family lore agreed that “InuYasha” was his name.

So, outside her family, no one else should know that. However, the claws that she suddenly found at her throat prevented her from really dwelling on why or how this terribly frightening _youkai_ knew the real identity of the _kami,_ or that he was really buried beneath the _honden_.

“Show me InuYasha if you value your life, _miko.”_

She nodded, the movement bringing her closer in contact with the sharp claws. Her breath caught in her throat.

Chihiro felt her heart nearly burst out from her chest as the claws formed the beginnings of red, angry gashes at her throat. She channeled her _reiki_ with all her might, attempting to purify her attacker. The _youkai_ did not so much as flinch.

If she didn’t act, she didn’t doubt for a second that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her.

“Release me,” she rasped, going limp within his hold, “and I will do as you ask.” 

Nodding perfunctorily, he released her from his grasp. She knelt down in the hole, pausing only to wipe the blood from her injuries.

Silently, Chihiro prayed she wasn’t the _miko_ who would sully the family honor and allow the shrine’s sleeping _kami_ to be killed on her watch. But, finding no other alternative, she removed the sealing _ofuda_ and carefully pushed the lid of the box aside. Inside was the slightly dusty form of an impossibly young man with the same silver hair as the all too alive _youkai_ at her shoulder.

The two _youkai_ might have passed for brothers…

He swept past her and knelt on the side of the gaping hole in what was supposed to be the holiest part of the shrine. For a long time, he merely observed the still, red-clad figure in the box.

“So, InuYasha,” he said at length, but clearly not for her benefit, “You have chosen the coward’s way after all.”

Then, he stood and strode out of the _honden_ ’s disarray. Not knowing why, Chihiro moved to follow him. 

“Tell your successors I will come again. If the _kitsune_ comes, assure him that I will keep InuYasha adequately protected.”

Then, as silently as he came, the self-proclaimed watcher left. Immediately, Chihiro tried to figure out how on earth she would explain why the sealing _ofuda_ needed replacement…and moreover, how she could repair the gaping hole in the holiest part of the family shrine without dying of absolute shame and embarrassment.

Chihiro never forgot the strange night and the strange man. So, when it came time to pass down the tale of the shrine’s unique _kami_ to her son, and he to his daughter, it now came with a warning.

That the _kami_ had a guardian became just another part of the shrine’s already strange and rich lore.

***


	15. Chiyo

**_XV.  Chiyo_ **

Donning her traditional robes, and pausing only briefly to bow and say a prayer to the pictures of her grandfather and parents in her household’s shrine, Chiyo went out of her family house and into the shrine compound. Carrying sacred cloth and a number of small supplies, she regarded the rising moon, and then hurried towards the raised platform on which the shrine’s _honden_ was placed.   Inside it, resided the sacred _shintai_ of the shrine, a _katana_ that was reputed to be from the Warring States Period.

This was her last task of the day. A task to prepare for the festival that would be in a few week’s time.

Even as a child, Chiyo had been aware that the beat up _katana_ that stayed rusty in its magnolia wood sheath no matter what anyone did, was not the shrine’s actual treasure. Sure, it was a symbol of their shrine _kami’s_ divine power… supposedly… but the first clue that it was not quite what it seemed was that the katana let off a very faint signature of _power_ all of its own. 

Her grandfather had called it _youki._ It was power that was opposed to the holy _reiki_ , which the Hashimoto family was rich in, going all the way back to the early Edo period, and perhaps farther.

She had seen the sword’s aura herself for as far back as she could remember—and the very, very faint feel of the same power—the same _youki_ —beneath the floorboards of the _honden_ of the Hashimoto Shrine. She knew now that this was not a normal shrine practice. In any other shrine the head priest cared for the sacred _shintai_ , which drew to it the power of the _kami._

Their particular _shintai_ was said to aid people who desired an impossible love. But their particular _shintai_ also had vaguely demonic energy… a contradiction that the stories she had been told as a child, the stories that had been passed on orally for generations upon generations of Hashimotos, did nothing to clear up.

In her tradition of asking questions better left unasked and not knowing any better, as a very young girl Chiyo had asked her mother, “Why does the floor of our _honden_ glow?”

Her mother had shushed her and forbidden Chiyo from talking about what _she_ herself couldn’t see.

(Her mother had married into the Hashimoto family, and while she knew a bit of the basic unofficial lore of the shrine from her father, she couldn’t quite fathom what her husband and daughter saw.)

Her grandfather, however, had gently explained it by telling her _their_ shrine was special: Rather than an object holding a _kami_ , just a sacred _shintai_ , their shrine, actually held a forest _kami_ who had once been a _youkai._ One day, the scrolls said, the _kami_ that protected the shrine would awaken and find his own fated love. This was the pact her ancestor had made more than three hundred years ago.

(Chiyo had asked another one of her infamous questions when her father had died, unexpectedly, of a heart attack. She had asked her grandfather why the _kami_ hadn’t protected him? Her grandfather had just held her softly and said, “Chiyo-chan…there are some fates even _kami_ cannot avert.”

She had taken this to heart when her grandfather also died a year later. She was left with a shrine and pieces of stories that didn’t fit together. Her father had put off passing on the more detailed shrine lore, until she was older. It had never occurred to him that he might not live to see his daughter age.

Hers was a fate without stories. So, when it was only Chiyo, she just had to guard their _kami_ with what lore she had, as incomplete as it was.)

Until the time of awakening, it was her family’s duty to guard their strange _kami_. Passing knowledge down to each generation, and guarding the kami’s _katana_ , she did the best she could.

Today, it was her duty to make sure the _shintai_ was polished and clean. 

Binding her hair back, and ritually purifying herself, she walked into the _honden,_ and, stopping just above where she knew the man beneath the floor was, she bowed to the _katana_ on its stand. Then, she stood up, taking it in her hands. Chiyo thought that it hummed at her…but it was so fleeting that she could have imagined it. She began to polish the magnolia hilt into a state of high, black glossiness. Delicately, she touched the ragged hilt-wrap, and did what she could do with the dull, rusted, metal blade.

Then, placing it back on the stand, she kneeled before it again, feeling the familiar signatures of the _kami_ that inhabited her shrine swirl around her, as if in greeting.

In the midst of her meditation, Chiyo was vaguely aware that a new presence had entered the shrine grounds. The newcomer’s energy was strange, as if it were being forced to be something it was not. She remained meditating, trying to regain her state of peace, thinking that whoever it was—a visitor, or perhaps a lost tourist—would soon depart when they realized the grounds were deserted and the shrine itself was closed.

They didn’t, however. With a strange prickle that raced down her spine, she felt the visitor come closer. Then, she heard the squeak of door of the _honden_ , an area that only the shrine’s head priest (when there was one) or the _miko_ left in his stead, were supposed to enter.

Fury filled her at such a breach and she whirled around.

“Miko,” the soft tones of a stranger’s voice were like cold water over her rage. The man’s appearance had a similar effect…although to call him a “man” might have been missing the point.

He was, perhaps, the strangest being Chiyo had ever seen. Instantly, she knew that the being in front of her was swirled in an energy that was directly akin to what she had felt in the _honden_ her whole life. Her indignant warning that no one was allowed here vanished from her lips.

In front of her was someone who she somehow knew everyone else saw as a tall and fairly handsome Japanese businessman in a well-cut suit.

But, somehow, Chiyo knew, this was not at all he was, and that he was exactly where he meant to be. This man did not go anywhere he did not mean to be. Somehow, she knew, too, that someone should probably have mentioned he was supposed to be here.

He was an ethereal museum piece, clad only in a formal white silk robe with a blue crest upon its sleeves. He had long, silver hair and a pair of golden eyes, the color of which she had never before seen. Most extraordinarily, he had the mark of a crescent moon upon his forehead, and stripes that must have traveled the full length of his body.

For a second, his aura flared, bright, impossibly powerful, and _old_. Then, it was gone again, as if it never had been. This was apparently the stranger’s way of letting her know exactly what he was. She took the not so subtle hint that she was being confronted by a creature from legend and myth. Crossing her arms over her chest and hiding her hands within her voluminous sleeves, she pinched herself as hard as she could.

It hurt. It hurt like, well, _reality_. Which meant that Chiyo had better mind her manners…

Shifting to a more formal demeanor, she bowed, careful still to block as much of the _shintai_ and the room from the stranger as she could.

“How may I assist you… _youkai_ -sama?” she asked.

His eyes narrowed as he evaluated her.

“I, Sesshoumaru would bring you a message.”

Chiyo swallowed once and then nodded.

“It is time: Awake him and take him home.”

Her eyes widened at this. _She_ should _awake_ him _?_ Was he _really_ talking about the shrine _kami_? That was supposed to be some future goal for one of her descendants. But, not for her.

As if sensing her internal battle, the _youkai’s_ frown deepened, and he stated, commandingly, “It must be you, _miko_. Soon. The other _miko_ can assist you from there.”

Then, he held out a slip of paper. Warily, too overwhelmed to ask anything useful, she took it.

He inclined his head minutely, and stated, “You have my thanks, _miko._ ” 

Then, the stranger turned heel and stalked out of the _honden_. By the time Chiyo had recovered enough to be able to think, she rushed out after him, but all she saw was the light of the full moon dancing on the leaves of the tree that dominated the shrine’s courtyard.

The otherworldly _youkai_ had gone.

Opening the note, she found, written in an elegant calligraphic hand, something that was unmistakably a phone number. The area code indicated it would ring a Tokyo number. She blinked at it slowly. Then, with something that felt like resolve, but not quite, she thought over all of the stories her father and grandfather had told her and went to look for more records at the shrine office that she feared probably didn’t exist.

*** 

The scrolls were, as she expected, inconclusive. Not that she was devoting her full attention to them. Rather, Chiyo found herself continually staring at the slip of paper with the prettiest phone number she had ever seen.

Finally, she gave up and went to her bedroom, intent on trying to sleep. Although, even as she lay down, Chiyo knew the operative word would be “trying.” All night, the number on her bedside table beckoned her. By the morning, she had pretty much not slept, but she knew she should be up to be about her duties.

However, if she wanted to actually think about anything she was doing, she needed to get her mind off of last night’s strange episode.

Without thinking, she pulled out her cell phone, the little anime charm of a _kitsune_ in traditional clothes bobbing with the motion. Glancing at the folded slip of paper, she typed the series of numbers in and paused. Then, after a minute or so of staring at the completed number, she took a deep breath and pressed the green dial button.

An old man answered: “Hello?”

Faster than she thought she was capable of moving, she frantically pressed the button to hang the phone up. Heart pounding, she literally threw the offending device onto her bed as if it were a poisonous snake about to strike. Then, disregarding her chores, and setting out the sign to indicate the shine was closed, she walked directly to the _honden_ and sat over the man buried in the floor, trying, desperately, to meditate and come to some sort of answer.

Meditation turned into a vision… or sleep… Chiyo could never say which.

She dreamed of a man in a red coat… well, not exactly a man. He had claws and dog-like ears. Around him was one of the most intense auras of sadness and determination she had ever known. And, in his hands, he held a red ball. He stood in the shrine’s courtyard, with a younger version of the sacred tree’s branches dancing in the wind behind him. Then, he blurred in front of her, and suddenly, she was walking towards a river. She now wore her _miko_ robes, although the sleeves were cut in a much older style than she was used to. She was intent on purifying herself for an important ritual. She dipped her hands into the cold water of the river, the drops spraying onto her clothes. For a moment, she waited for the rippling water in her hands to still.

When it did, she realized the face looking up at her was no longer her own.

Chiyo woke up in a cold sweat, and try as she might, she could not bring herself to leave the familiar tendrils of energy swirling up from the floor beneath her. She thought about the stranger. About his silver hair and the crescent moon upon his forehead. She thought about the _kami,_ too, and how similar their auras felt. She thought about the phone number.

Why did a shrine _kami_ need a _miko_ in Tokyo? Or need a _youkai_ to tell a _miko_ to call _another_ _miko_ in Tokyo, really?

For that matter, why now? Why did it have to be her?

She fell asleep, sprawled on the floor over the aura that only her grandfather, her father, and she could feel. Her last thought was that she already missed yesterday, when things had been uncomplicated and everything around her had just been a strange, incomplete story.

***


	16. Crowbars and Modern Inconveniences

**_XVI.  Crowbars and Modern Inconveniences_ **

After three sleepless nights, Chiyo formulated a plan. It involved a crow bar and a report that robbers had vandalized the shrine’s ancient _honden_. No one needed to know that the shrine’s own _miko_ was the vandal. And that way, if the world had indeed gone crazy, then she could at least get the floor repaired… albeit a bit dishonestly.

The light of the moon was the only thing she allowed to guide her to the _honden_. She had waited until the hustle and bustle of Kyoto had died down and all she could hear were the cicadas’ gentle humming on a warm, summer’s night.

She locked the door of the _honden_ behind her in the event that more unexpected visitors snuck in, tied back her sleeves, hefted the crowbar on her shoulder, and regarded the old wood flooring.

Taking a deep breath, she decided that she would, in fact, tear apart the most holy place in her family’s whole shrine on the word of a _youkai_. 

Before she started her desecration, she moved the shrine’s _shintai_ away, as if to block her destruction from its view.

Chiyo chose a floorboard to see what was underneath it to start with. Frowning, she picked out one that was both the largest and the most centered over the aura. Finally, steeling her resolve the umpteenth time that night, she placed the crowbar on the floor, felt around for the edge of the board and then, taking a deep breath, began prying it up.

She wasn’t very good at it, but managed to tear the board from the floor, cracking it in half as she did so. She set it to the side and turned on a flashlight she had brought and poked it into the hole beneath.

The beam of the light caught something white, causing her to jump a bit with nerves and impatience. Then, she sighed.

_Only an aged_ ofuda.

Trying to get a better look, she stuck her face into the hole as far as she could, pausing only to tie a cloth around her nose and mouth to keep the dust away. Underneath the floor was a large box. Which meant, she knew, she’d have to pry up a much larger section of the floor than she had expected.

Sweating through her white _chihaya_ of her _miko_ robes, she painstakingly pulled up a number of other floorboards, putting each of them into as respectful of a pile as she could manage. Finally, the outline of the box came into view with its multiple generations of _ofuda,_ all written in a variety of elegant hands, and all but the most recent curiously broken apart, as if the contents of the box were continually checked and resealed throughout the generations it had slept there. 

Calling up her own spiritual power, she broke through the last sutra and, to her surprise, the top of the roughly hewn box came off easily.

She shoved it aside, and then, amidst all the anticipation she had built up and all the stories her grandfather and father had told her, she didn’t quite know what to make of the _kami_ she was awaking. It—for she could make no definite shapes of anything remotely _kami_ or human-like within the detritus of ages inside the box—was covered in a thick layer of grime. The dust rendered almost everything a washed out grey that was only interrupted by an odd tinge of silver and muted splashes of scarlet in minute patches as the her flashlight passed over the form. The only truly distinguishable object in the whole of the box was what appeared to be an ancient arrow that poked up from the mid center at an odd angle, the feathered fletching having long since disintegrated into dust.

The arrow gave her a bizarre sense of déjà vu: it emitted a strong pulse of a strangely familiar _reiki._

Her _kami_ , it seemed, had been sealed into his box below her shrine with an ancient arrow. Which, if she couldn’t already feel the foreign tingle of power, would certainly be an indication to anyone else that this whole set up was a deeply un- _kami_ thing.

_Well_ , Chiyo told herself, _there is only one thing to do._

Testing the knot that kept the cloth over her face, Chiyo gingerly stepped into the hole at the side of the box. She stumbled against the box momentarily after catching her red _hakama_ briefly on one of the splintered floorboards. A grey cloud engulfed the entire hole. Now solidly coated in grime, she waited for the storm to die down before evaluating the task ahead of her once more. Making a silent pledge to avoid the arrow until she _really_ knew what she was getting into, she reached into the box and began trying to brush away the dust of ages. Starting at one of the red patches, she moved her hand from side to side, and revealed a length of coarse fabric.

Chiyo half expected it might crumble under the slightest touch, but, rubbing it through her fingers, she found it as sturdy as anything in her own wardrobe—maybe even more so. Moving in the space around the arrow, but never touching it, she dusted to reveal the faint outlines of an ancient _suikan._ Curiously, as she scooped out handfuls of dust, with it came the tatters of a once white _kosode_ that crumbled underneath the scarlet outer robe. She continued her brushing, coming to the edge of a sleeve that was quite voluminous, before feeling something ice cold…gingerly, she held it up and nearly gasped when she realized she held a man’s callused and seemingly lifeless hand. Moreover, at the end of each of his fingertips, rather than fingernails, was a set of wicked looking claws.

Slightly creeped out by such a discovery, Chiyo had to fight to remember that this was the _kami_ of her shrine. He, as un- _kami_ like as he was, was here for a reason. And he, she knew, was always meant to be awoken by a member of the Hashimoto family.

Chiyo told herself this was nothing to be frightened of… and this was _definitely_ not something you yelped about before dropping their hand unceremoniously back into the dusty filled depths of the box that the _kami_ had apparently been sealed in. She placed the hand over the _suikan_ -clad chest and moved to unearth the other one.

She tried not to think, with his hands crossed over one another on his chest (which was pretty much the only part that had thus far escaped the dust), how closely he resembled some creature from a Western horror film.

The legs she did not bother with much, firstly, since the _hakama_ he wore hid so much dust in its folds that, as soon as she was done with one part, more dust inevitably tumbled into what she had just finished cleaning. Secondly, it seemed a bit awkward for a _miko_ to be brushing certain areas of a very male _kami_. So, she turned to the area above the red _suikan_ , finding first a strange rosary, and then a face covered in long, long hair so thick with dust, she could not tell what color it had originally been. Delicately, reminding herself that this was the actual sacred _kami_ of the shrine, she brushed the hair over the top of his head. In doing so, her hand encountered a furred texture much different from that of the dust. She grabbed it firmly and pulled. It did not come loose.

However, in doing so, she felt a pulse of… _something_ arise from the _kami._

Suddenly apprehensive, she moved away from the fuzzy object and swept aside the remaining dusty locks to reveal a young man’s face, slightly lolled to the side, as if in a deep sleep. His expression was one of peace and almost…contentment. Placing the back of her hand against the cheek, Chiyo felt the icy cold of his skin and a second pulse of…something.

She regarded the arrow for a moment, knowing exactly what it was. It had been put in place to seal this _kami_ —really, this _youkai_ —to this shrine. And yet, she was the destined one who was supposed to wake him up. Well, according to some legends passed down and a random stranger with a very strange name and an even stranger aura.

When had her life gotten so inexplicable…?

Experimentally, she wrapped a hand around the shaft of the arrow.

Chiyo wasn’t sure how long she simply held it like this, her fingers wrapped around the ancient wood as a strange blankness settled into her brain. Her daze was only interrupted by a third, much stronger pulse.

“Just pull it out,” came a quiet voice, raspy with disuse.

She jerked in surprise, and rather than removing the arrow, it shifted angles abruptly, causing a barely audible groan to leave the man’s now open mouth.

The voice had come from inside the box.

The man…the _kami_ …was speaking to her. 

Stiffly, with a sheer force of will, she looked up to see his face. His eyes were still closed, probably against the dust that clung to his lashes and his indeterminately colored masses of hair, but the peaceful expression had faded to a scowl of irritation.

Chiyo stared at him, unabashedly, forgetting that the focus point of the holy spell was still firmly in her grasp.

“The arrow, girl,” he rasped again.

She felt another powerful pulse from him, as if his heart were awakening and beginning to pump blood again after all this time. It was her duty to wake him, she repeated herself. This was why she was here, why the Hashimotos were here. It was _her_ duty, she repeated, to wake him. Just as it was her duty, according to a _youkai_ , to allow this man to go home. And it may also be her duty to call a strange Tokyo number that didn’t seem to fit in with the other two.

But, all of that started with pulling out a sealing arrow from another, not quite living, _youkai_. Then, the _youkai_ would be free to go home, free to roam around Kyoto, and free to do whatever it wanted with Chiyo… she found this last fact slightly troubling.

It was her grandfather’s voice, his clear, calm baritone, telling an American tourist the story of the shrine that came back to her at that moment: _Our_ kami _grants luck in impossible love, sir. There is a legend, a legend that a_ kami _was born and fated for someone who out of his grasp. One day, we will deliver the_ kami _into her arms._

Then the words of the _youkai_ visitor: _Awake him and take him home._

Grasping the arrow firmly, once again, she closed her eyes, and pulled with all her might. She opened her eyes just in time to see the ancient arrow dissolve into wood splinters in her hand and she felt the chest beneath the _suikan_ move.

For the first time in the uncounted years, the _kami—_ her _kami—_ began to _breathe_.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, dear readers...that is where I'll leave you.
> 
> InuYasha waited three hundred and fifty some odd years. I figured you could all wait a night. :)


	17. Rude Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Some explicit language.

**_XVII.  Rude Awakening_ **

 

The man lay still in his box, concentrating inordinately hard on his ragged breathing, as if the very act of being alive exhausted him. At a length, he said, in a deeply un _kami_ -like manner, “Shit, I forgot what that felt like.”

Chiyo blinked at him. Then, she noticed that as he lifted his hand and his dusty hair settled, the definitely-not-a- _kami_ had, rather than human ears, two dusty dog ears on the top of his head, she blinked three more times. That, in retrospect, was probably what she had been tugging.

The not- _kami_ stared at her with inhuman golden eyes and then, finally said, “Yo.”

Chiyo, momentarily battling over just how one spoke to…whoever had been living under her shrine’s floor, blinked back at him before answering very slowly and politely, “Good evening. Just who are you?

Instead he ignored her questions and attempted to rise from the box, but tumbled back in, his movements conjuring a flurry of dust into the air that left them both coughing and sneezing.

“A little help?” he rasped irritably.

She did not move until her mouth moved unbidden.

“Tell me who you are.”

Despite being both the second _youkai_ she had probably seen this week and being sealed beneath her floor as a divine being, to boot, he simply looked down and answered, almost inaudibly, “Nobody...”

Appalled, she feigned seriousness and disinterest. She would _not_ let him get the upper hand.

“Well, that tells me precisely nothing.”

He gave a rough form of what might have been an irritated growl had his voice been working properly.

“What year is it?” he asked, still not looking at her.

She watched him, without answering. It was a strange question to be sure.

“What year is it, wench?” he stated again, this time, his voice rasping irritably.

_Wench?_ Yep, distinctly not a _kami._ Also, distinctly rude. Inwardly, Chiyo flinched at these thoughts, but then said, very softly, “2002.”

He made a show of trying to put his legs under him, the dust falling off his red _hakama_ in sheets. His feet were bare, she noticed. Maybe his shoes had rotted away during his sealing.

She did not so much as move to help him.

“Where did I end up?”

Everything that wasn’t the strange red fabric was now sloughing off of him in tatters…the cut sleeves of his _suikan_ coat occasionally disgorged papery yellow strips and his bare flesh began peeking through the open slits of his _hakama_. Chiyo felt a faint blush of embarrassment coloring her cheeks.

She focused, instead, on the shrine’s _shintai_ , moved out of the way of the destruction of the floor, remembering her duty.

“My family shrine in Kyoto.”

“Haven’t moved then. Good.”

He made a move to get up again, now that his legs were more thoroughly under him. He managed to leverage himself half out of the box before collapsing, scraping himself painfully over the rough-hewn wood at the side.

His collapse was accompanied by a shower of dust and expletives. He remained gasping for a while, before he recovered enough breath to continue his interrogation. His voice gave out as a vaguely feral growl now.

“And who are you, besides unhelpful?”

Chiyo looked at him, still not moving a muscle to help him.

“You tell me first,” she said evenly.

He grumbled something under his breath she didn’t quite catch. It was likely rude, so she ignored it.

“I told ‘ya. Nobody you need to worry about, wench.”

_He says it like it explains everything and it’s a privilege to know._

“You must have woken up on the wrong side of the box,” she stated.

Defiantly, and with a definite tremble that undermined the nature of the gesture somewhat, he crossed his arms over his chest, hiding them within his sleeves. The gesture forced the fabric to release more dust clouds, leading him to cough and further spoil the effect.

Despite herself, she laughed at him and, reaching some internal decision, offered him a hand. No use for them to both remain stubborn. She, at any rate, had a job to do.

“Hashimoto Chiyo.”

Strangely, he seemed to _sniff_ at her proffered hand delicately, before once more coughing. He grabbed it and, together they worked on freeing him from the box. His bare feet left dusty footprints on what remained of the _honden_ ’s floor. Chiyo attempted to usher him out of the room, but the _youkai_ paused, as if remembering something, and looked back.

“Woman, where’s my sword?”

Chiyo blinked. First, because of “woman” and second because of “sword.” He couldn’t mean—

“The shrine’s _shintai_?”

He stared at her and then, unexpectedly, laughed the raspy laugh again.

“That old hag really did make me a _kami…_ ” he remarked under his breath.

It was at that moment that Chiyo gave up understanding well, _anything_. The dusty _youkai_ that had been, apparently, sealed in her family shrine for several hundred years was now pocketing the shrine’s treasure in his obi despite her feeble protests… as if he owned it. Which, she understood belatedly, taking into account the feel of its energy, he probably did. But, even so…she sighed and decided that she would focus on pragmatic things and figure out how to account for the battered _shintai_ and the hole in the floor later. Pragmatic things were much better pondered now, she thought.

Things like what the heck was she supposed to do with a several hundred-year-old _youkai_ from under her floor that wore Heian era clothing (most of which had mysteriously survived)… Not to mention, that said _youkai_ was unspeakably rude and would not provide so much as a name to account for himself… Especially considering, another quite mysterious _youkai_ had entrusted him to her with only a Tokyo phone number for assistance.

To think, some of her friends had _laughed_ at her when she said she was going to be taking over the duties of her family’s shrine rather than going to college. The traditional life she was supposed to lead was going to be boring, some had told her. Ha! Showed them! Well, actually, as they stumbled together across her moonlit courtyard towards her house, the joke may very well have been on Chiyo, after all.

There was silence until they were standing in the dark entryway of her house, where she tried not to think about the fact that she was inviting a strange _youkai_ —and a strange _male_ _youkai,_ at that—into her house. And he was filthy… and _armed_ … Her fears turned to panic…this was a _youkai_ armed with what she highly suspected was a _youkai_ sword, who had never seen the modern world.

How was he going to react to electric lights? Or cars? Or kotatsus? Or simply even _bicycles_?

Her heart pounding, Chiyo shifted herself and the _youkai_ ’s heavy body over so she could reach the light switch. Taking a deep breath she flicked on the light.

She paused, waiting for some kind of reaction, and to her surprise, there was none. She felt her ready explanation of “ _It’s_ _miko magic!”_ wither on her tongue, and sighing, almost in disappointment, made her way towards the living room. She aimed for a cushion in the middle of the _tatami_ mat floor, and as gently as she could, lowered her guest onto it. Once settled, he leaned heavily on his arms, attempting to pull himself into a very dog-like crouching position.

Scowling when his body would not obey him, he flopped, leaning heavily on the cushion merely to remain upright. He stared at the opposite wall for a moment, deep in what looked like unpleasant thoughts. In the silence she started a mental list: first, he needed a bath… that she would draw next. Although, there would be some difficulty getting someone who could barely move in and out of said bath. That would be…unpleasant. Her mind refused to continue down that particular line of thought. She knew hauling his weak body up the stairs was probably more than she could manage, so she resolved to bring the guest futon down to the living room and just shove the rest of the furniture to the side so he could sleep there. Next, there was the matter of food… what exactly did several hundred year old _youkai_ _eat_?

Uh… _humans_ … if the legends were right. But this man… dog(?)… _person_ didn’t look like he was in a hurry to devour her whole. Neither did the first _youkai_ , for that matter.

Her guest broke the silence, finally, in a way Chiyo had never remotely expected.

“Do you have any ninja-food?” he rasped.

“What?!” she responded, completely perplexed.

“ _Ramen_ … do you have any ramen?”

Chiyo couldn’t help it: she stared. He scowled, and stared right back.

She amended her description. This was a _stubborn_ , rude, filthy, and damned confusing _youkai_. And one that really, _really_ , piqued her curiosity, despite her trying to remain serious and appear decidedly unpalatable.

Curiosity won out.

“How the heck do you know what _ramen_ is?”

The infernal man _smirked._

“I know what cars, and trains, and school, and video games, and tests are, too.”

Each word was said in a slightly stilted way that indicated that he wasn’t completely familiar with them, and they weren’t part of his native vocabulary. But she believed him when he said that he knew what they were. 

Maybe he was some kind of fortune telling _youkai_ that could see the future. That might explain the legends about this rude dog-earred being helping people with impossible loves. Or maybe he was reading her mind and drawing upon her pool of modern knowledge… or maybe he was far, far, stranger than Chiyo could even guess. Dimly, she remembered the first _youkai_ ’s command: Chiyo was supposed to bring him home. How did he have a home here when he’d been in a box for at least several hundred years?

“How—how do you know about any of that?”

There was no other way to describe his reaction: he just leered triumphantly at her and then asked again, “Got any ramen?”

She nodded mutely. Well, at least he didn’t eat humans.

“Bath first,” she ordered and then whirled around to make it happen. At least he couldn’t follow her in his weakened state. When she returned, he was sprawled out on three of her floor cushions, dead asleep.

Frowning, Chiyo draped a blanket over his dirty shoulders, and just took the bath herself.

***


	18. Home

**_XVIII.  Home_ **

Chiyo’s guest was still dead asleep when she came down the next morning. She crept out the door briefly to set out a sign proclaiming the shrine was closed for the day, and when she entered again, the _youkai_ ’s ears twitched and one golden eye opened.

He groaned and rolled over onto his back.

“Are the years catching up to you now?” she asked, almost politely.

“Keh!” commented the _youkai_. “ _You_ spend three hundred fifty years in a box with an arrow through you, woman.”

Chiyo frowned.

“The only reason I would spend three hundred years in a box is if an arrow _killed_ me. So, I don’t think I would care.”

He used the table to pull himself up again, mumbling, “Weak humans…”

“You, as a legendary _youkai_ , aren’t representing your kind very well at the moment. When you can get off the floor without help from the weak human, you can talk.” 

He made another derisive noise, and tried to use the table to rise to his feet. She suspected he did it just to prove her utterly wrong.

“I’m not a full _youkai_ , and this time I wasn’t pinned to a real Tree of Ages, just some of the wood. So I guess,” he growled as he rose shakily to his feet, “I’m feeling more human than _hanyou_ right now.”

He took a dangerous lurch, and she rushed to steady him, sighing and wondering what actual _kami_ had decided to punish her by making him her responsibility. Then, once he was steadied, the meaning of the actual words he had said trickled into her brain.

“You’ve been sealed _twice_?”

Chiyo turned to face him, holding him up by the shoulders. 

“The first time wasn’t my fault.”

He looked, if anything, a little embarrassed.

“Meaning… the second one _was?_ ”

He tried to yank himself out of her grasp, drawing his sword out of his obi. For a moment, she thought he was going to draw it against her. But instead, he wrenched out of her grasp and began using it as a cane of sorts. She had to stop from crying out to see her shrine’s _shintai_ used in such a way, but bit her reaction back.

He made his “Keh!” noise again, which she was realizing was his “I’m not going to talk about this” noise.

She put her hands on her hips, trying to appear as threatening as a twenty-year-old shrine _miko_ could, and said, trying to put an edge of threat into her voice, “ _Youkai_ - _san_ …why were you beneath my shrine?”

He didn’t meet her eyes. She took a deep breath, letting her frustration out into her words.

“A better question is: why on earth did you seal yourself here, and why did I need to pull you out _now?_ ”

Very slowly, he took a step, leaning on his sword. The movement made him tremble, demonstrating just how weak she was. Still, she saw that he was proud, so pointing out that he should probably be nicer if he wanted her help would probably not do much good.

“Later, woman. First, I need to take a bath, and then you can feed me some ramen.” 

She sighed, and at a length, nodded. 

Chiyo left him and his trembling legs to stand in her living room, as she went to prepare the bathroom for her guest for the second time. Thinking quickly, she also went into the second bedroom—her parents’ when they had been alive—and pulled out some of her father’s old shrine clothes.

His Heian period clothes, she gathered, might not have been washed since the Heian era and if they had lasted this long, she doubted her washing machine could hurt them. She would toss them in and give him her father’s clothes to wear in the meantime.

She went back to get him, and handed him the clothes, gesturing at where he could put his old ones. He looked very suspicious, but didn’t resist.

As she left the bathroom, he said, so softly she almost didn’t hear, “Thanks.”

*** 

He emerged from the bathroom, once again using his sword as a cane. How he managed to both get in the tub and out again under his own power, she did not know and did not ask. All Chiyo knew was that there was an inordinate amount of loud, crude, cursing involved in both ordeals. She had knocked to check on him, but all she had heard was a mix of splashing, cursing, and vehement denials of any offers of help. Looking over the state the room was left in, Chiyo knew she would never be able to give enough thanks to whoever had invented floor drains in bathrooms. 

But restoring her bathroom would have to be taken care of later. Currently, she had an irritated guest who needed her attention.

Even with his unearthly silver hair plastered to his back, and wearing her father’s slightly loose clothes, underneath all that dust he certainly looked much younger… and handsomer. His skin, however, had about it a sickly pallor that probably stemmed from hundreds of years without sunlight.

Using his sword-cane, he navigated himself back into the living room, and more gracefully than she expected he might be able to, he flopped himself back down in what had become his spot, now occupied by the guest futon.

Chiyo left him there for a moment, and went to the kitchen.

She pulled out the chopsticks and got out the cup ramen from her cupboard. Wordlessly, she poured in the hot water and carried it out to her guest. He stared at it for a moment, a strange look passing over his face, and then, even more slowly, picked up the chopsticks and began to eat.

Seated at the other end of the table, Chiyo just watched him out of the corner of her eye, while pretending to read a light novel.

The sound of noodles being slurped, and pages being turned, and gruffly dismissed pleasantries were all that passed between them.

A similar sort of silence prevailed throughout the next week, because the strange person across from her hadn’t regained enough strength to stop falling asleep in the middle of his sentences. She had given up trying to get anymore out of him than a “Keh!” which seemed to be his response to anything more difficult than, “Would you like food/water/a pillow?”

She went through a crate of ramen, too. 

Chiyo’s new lifestyle also had a negative impact of her sleeping patterns.

Half fearing that the other _youkai_ would come back and half hoping he would (if only to _explain_ to her what exactly she was supposed to do _now_ ), Chiyo lay awake throughout the week, jumping out of her futon at every noise. Sometimes she would come down the stairs to see her guest glaring at her, arms crossed over his strange red clothes which he now refused to change out of, even though they were layered awkwardly over an old _haori_ of her father’s.

The phone number she didn’t dare touch, yet. After calling and reaching an old man instead of the mysterious miko, she couldn’t exactly bring herself to call up and say, “Ah, do you have a _miko_ to lend out to give me a hand with a legendary being who everyone thinks is fictitious? As a courtesy, I should also mention said fictitious beings are stubborn, rude, and vulgar.”

Finally, when the week ended and Chiyo had given up hope of civil conversation with her unruly guest, over the fifth bowl of ramen he was devouring that day, he finally broke his silence.

The conversation had begun normally enough… for him.

“Don’t you ever sleep at a normal time?” she asked.

He responded with a predictable “Keh!” and after she was done making some herbal tea (to maybe calm him down), she came back to find he was _brooding_ (there was no better term for it, she decided) over the remains of his broth.

“I’m trying to find…a girl,” he said at length. He set his chopsticks in front of him on the table, the bowl completely emptied. He wouldn't so much as look at her.

Chiyo nodded, encouragingly.

“She’s…” he seemed to be fighting with himself over something. Chiyo couldn’t really say she understood, but he just seemed so sad that she couldn’t comment, lest he startle him into silence again.

“Kagome. Her name is Kagome. Higurashi Kagome.”

Each time he said her name, it was like he was trying it out again, trying to shape it to fit in his mouth. It was like watching him trying to spit out words he wasn’t certain he should be saying.

Chiyo nodded again, doing her utmost best to look like someone a, well… an apparently a nameless _hanyou_ , could confide in.

“Who is she to you?” she finally asked, when he was silent and no longer looked like he would offer anything further.

His amber eyes took on a look of pain, and he immediately lowered his head, obscuring his expression from her. When he spoke again, his voice was so low she could barely hear him.

“Everything.”

She took in the proud being in front of her, understanding, despite the fact that he didn’t say it, that such an admission cost him something. And understanding also, that the pursuit of this girl had cost him _everything_.

Most importantly, it had been a price that he had been more than willing to pay.

( _Once,_ her father had said, _a_ kami _had loved a girl he could not have. One that was born at the wrong time and in the wrong place. That_ kami, _our lore says, would do anything to return back to her. He would crawl back from death, and fight even time_.

_No, Papa,_ she had said, _that is a legend_. _No one can fight death and time._

Her father had smiled. Sadly.

_Perhaps, Chiyo-chan. Perhaps._ )

In no way did Chiyo understand how a _hanyou_ from the Feudal Era loved a girl in the modern world, or how he knew what ramen was, or why he had, apparently, sealed himself in a shrine in Kyoto, but now, she now was fairly certain who the Tokyo number might reach.

The home she had been instructed to return him to was not a place. His home was a _miko._

Chiyo stood up, looking intently at the person across from her.

“I will find her for you. I promise.”

He did not so much as nod to show he had heard her. Chiyo let it alone, well aware by now of the futility of arguing with him, and left him with the slight excuse that she had to make some more tea.

When she returned, he was asleep (or at least feigning sleep). Chiyo wondered idly what, if anything, he dreamed about.

***


	19. Help With a Very Specific Problem

**_XIX.  Help With a Very Specific Problem_ **

Readying herself for the day, Chiyo made the excuse that she would need to go out and take care of some business in the shrine office. Stopping briefly in her bedroom to pick up the slip of paper and her laptop, she headed back to the living room to explain to her guest how he could amuse himself in her absence. She noted where the television was, and then, to her amazement, he had nodded and asked for the remote, which he then used to turn on an anime about a house cat. Then she explained how he could heat water with the help of her electric kettle for more ramen or tea… something he also understood, strangely enough. Finally, Chiyo told him to come out and find her if he needed anything.

He said in no uncertain terms that he had no need of a “wench” like her, uttering his typical “ _Keh!”_ and crossing his arms over his chest.

She highly suspected that he would go to sleep again, so she also pulled out the guest futon for him.

“Just in case,” she quipped, ignoring his retort of “In case _what_?”

And so, hoping he would stay indoors and not do anything to destroy her home, she headed out into the courtyard.

Still ignoring the paper, she started by looking up “Higurashi Kagome Tokyo” in her search engine and didn’t end up with much of anything useful. She then tried to search for the number and found that, at least as far as the internet was concerned, it was unlisted.

She sighed and picked up her phone again, clicking to her call logs and locating the number. This time, she tried to fill herself with more purpose than apprehension before she hit the call button. The familiar dial tone kept ringing and finally, the same old man came on who had picked up the first time.

“Hello?”

“Good afternoon,” Chiyo said politely, “I know this sounds strange, but can you please tell me where I’ve called?”

The old man made a noise.

“This is the Higurashi Shrine,” he tone was rather proud.

_Higurashi_. _Good._

“Ah, good! I was hoping I had been given the correct number! Is Kagome-chan there?”

She frowned a little at her subterfuge despite her bright voice. 

“Kagome-chan…well, she isn’t here at the moment.” His voice was suddenly suspicious, “I can take a message Miss…”

“Hashimoto. I knew Kagome-chan in high school. I really need help with, um, a _very_ specific problem that _only_ she could help me with…”

How did she explain that there was a _hanyou_ who might be in love with her sitting in her living room who was stubborn and rude and wouldn’t give me his name? And that he had been under her floorboards waiting for her for, oh, maybe, three hundred and fifty years? Also, by the way, she had no idea who she was actually calling are and how much all of that would freak her out.

She thought quickly.

“Japanese folklore…” she found herself fibbing. “I need to know about tales of _mikos_ sealing _youkai_ for a college class of mine. In high school she had, uh, quite the enthusiasm for… folklore?”

Chiyo just hoped she hadn’t said too much because the voice on the other end of the phone was incredulous.

“I will take your number and she will call you back.”

Letting out a mental sigh of relief, Chiyo gave him the information and idly inquired when he might expect “Kagome-chan” home. He gave her an evasive time window.

Now she just had to wait…

***

Seeing as her week had started with digging _youkai_ out of the shrine floorboards, and continued on with both the demands of an irritable _hanyou,_ and was haunted by the possibility of his _youkai_ protector showing up again, Chiyo found herself nodding off in the comfortable warmth and quiet of the shrine office. Having fallen asleep right at her desk, she nearly missed the chirpy pop-song of her ring tone. Jerking awake, she reached for her cell phone and stabbed the button to answer it.

“Hashimoto Shrine,” she answered, just in case it was _her._ “Hashimoto” was the only name she had given the old man.

A young woman responded, her uncertainty apparent.

“Ummm…This is Higurashi Kagome. “ She said formally. “My apologies, Hashimoto-san…I don’t really remember you, but you called with, uh, a question?”

Chiyo bit her lip and decided to tell her the truth.

“I’m sorry, Higurashi-san, in truth, you’ve never met me before.”

Kagome made a noise of surprise.

“I have a certain problem that I was told you could help me with… by a mysterious person. Is it true you are a _miko_?”

There was a silence.

“Higurashi-san?” she prompted.

There was a moment or two more of silence.

“I’m sorry…where did you hear this from? No one has called me a _miko_ in years… Now, I only study Japanese folklore at university, however…so I’m not sure what I can still do for you…”

“I am also a _miko_ , of sorts. I have a family shrine, and now, well, I have…a _youkai_ problem.”

At first, the other girl didn’t say anything. When this Kagome finally spoke she was almost strangely passive.

“A _youkai_ you said? Are you sure? Everyone knows _youkai_ … don’t exist.”

_Tell that to the one sitting in my living room_ , Chiyo thought. _He probably wouldn’t take too kindly to his assumed non-existence. Especially from you_. 

So, Chiyo went for broke, praying the ploy would work.

“I was told to contact you by a man named Sesshoumaru. About my… _problem_.”

Again, Kagome did not respond, but she could hear an audible gasp. However, when she spoke again, Higurashi Kagome had a casual tightness in her voice that Chiyo knew only came with a good deal of practice.

“What name did you say?”

“Sesshoumaru…I think he said.”

Silence again. The casual act was fading.

“Who did you say you were?”

There was a note of something between sadness and desperation in her voice.

Something in Chiyo told her that this was not the time to tell her about her esteemed guest. You didn’t just tell someone casually that a _hanyou_ had sealed themselves into a floor for hundreds of years just to meet you. And Chiyo wasn’t about to when the possibility of any connection between them made absolutely no sense. Maybe she was wrong, and the legends were wrong, and the dog-eared msn actually had a vendetta against this Higurashi and had gone to great extremes to take revenge against the reincarnated soul of his old enemy…

…or _something._

Chiyo clearly needed more sleep and rationality in her life. 

And, perhaps, to do that, what she needed was to bring Higurashi Kagome here.

“I am Hashimoto Chiyo,” she said, then took a deep breath, “Could you, please, come to Kyoto, Higurashi-san? I know this is a strange request… but, I think only you could help me.”

“Tomorrow,” she stated. “I can come tomorrow. On the 8 a.m. Nozomi. Can you meet me at the station?”

Chiyo pondered how long she could leave her guest to his own devices if she actually left the shrine grounds. While he was stronger now than a week ago, he still wouldn’t be able to make it far without passing out.

But, that was comforting in and of itself, she supposed.

“Yes. I’ll be dressed as a _miko_ so you can find me easily. The station is not a very far from the shrine…”

There was a note of determination in the other woman’s voice when she spoke again. Not that it mattered, but Chiyo thought she would come to like this Higurashi Kagome.

“Tomorrow, Hashimoto-san. I’ll do my best to help you with your problem. I’ll be the one with a red bow, so you can find me easily, as well.”

Mentally noting her hair accessory preference, Chiyo nodded.

“I look forward to it, Higurashi-san.”

She hung up, knowing that she had at least accomplished _something_. Chiyo was just unsure what, exactly, that was, but it was, at least, something _._

Then, shutting up the shrine office, she set her steps back towards her home, locking the door behind her

She was greeted by the sound of light snoring greeted her. 

She hoped that Higurashi-san would know what to do with the _hanyou_ in her living room, because she certainly didn’t.

***


	20. Hope II

**_XX.  Hope II_ **

Kagome got on the eight A.M. Nozomi bullet train with a backpack and her red bow from her high school archery club. Just in case, she had stashed a few arrows carefully in a container in her backpack, so she didn’t arouse any more interest than she already did boarding a bullet train with her bow. She had considered, at one point, putting on her old archery uniform, so as to not seem _too_ strange… but then again, she didn’t want to seem too strange to the person she was meeting, either. 

The two hours crawled on, seemingly slower than the five years since the last time she had been to the Feudal Era, the last time she had seen _him_. 

Her heart caught in her throat.

She had tried not to think about _him_ …not that she had ever been terribly successful at that.

In fact, for three years she had tried the well every three days. The last time she had tried, on the night before her high school graduation, she had made a promise to herself that if it still didn’t work then she would finally stop and leave the past in the past. Ignoring the rope ladder entirely and putting every desperate emotion that she had into it, Kagome had thrown herself in with desperate abandon.

She spent the day of her graduation ceremony in a hospital as they set her resulting broken ankle.

Her friends had joked that it had been a long time since Kagome had been sick and missed school, and came to her room with her graduation gifts and their cameras to capture the moment with her.   Ayumi joked that since she had missed her first entrance ceremony, she was merely keeping up with the tradition by also missing the exit. She responded to them all with her brightest smile.

Neither her mother nor her brother had been at all convinced by her sunny demeanor.

Later that night, when her mother had come to make sure she had taken her pain medication, Kagome had finally broken and her mother held her in her arms for an hour or more as she cried without explanation. It took weeks for her to be able to so much look at the well house again without a red-hot anger at the unfairness of the universe burning up within her.

(Goshinboku was something else altogether. The well might have connected them, but to Kagome, the tree was evidence, both painful and comforting, that he had _lived._ And try as she might, she could _never_ be angry about that.)

Then, anger gave way to something that was not quite empty and not quite without hope… but it was more emptiness than her previous hope had given her. And, she convinced herself that being almost empty was better than the thought that Miroku and Sango and Shippou and _him…_ were… well, in the past. In her modern time, the only time she could access now, they were dust and bone and memory. And unfortunately, the past stayed in the past, except for the brief, inexplicable exception that was granted to her, that she could now only see as evidence of the universe’s unfairness and insanity.

It was with that lonely thought that Kagome realized that emptiness needed practice, and for someone like her, it was a thing learned by rote.

She had tried to practice by using the phrase “if InuYasha were still alive” as if it were a mantra. His presence and absence in her life was encoded in a myriad of small things: a red baseball cap, the pungent smell of curry, the clouded stars over Tokyo’s skies, the faded and torn green uniform that was hidden just out of sight in her closet. When the reality that she would never see him again finally sank in after three years, even his name had hurt, and the mantra had changed to just, “If _he_ were alive…” as hope became painful and emptiness eluded her.

There were no more _youkai_ in these modern times, she told herself. _He_ was _gone_.

_He_ would never come back to her. With the well gone, there was no shortcut, and she couldn’t hope that he had lived long enough to meet her again here on his own.

If _he_ were here now she would certainly have known. He always operated by simple and straightforward principles. If _he_ were alive, he would have hopped into her bedroom window in the home she hadn’t quite mustered enough gumption to leave. If _he_ were alive, he would have unceremoniously ripped off the limbs of each of the ill-advised blind dates her friends had forced onto her. If _he_ were alive, he would have torn the world apart just to see her again.

(But the one place without emptiness whispered, _when you know someone like that,_ love _someone like that, how can you ever replace them?)_

She had worn her smile, and tried to conquer the world just like when she was a girl. Couldn’t she be that girl again? Even after everything?

Kagome had tried.

Now, it was just _wrong_.   

To survive, Kagome had to find the ability to continually forget the hope that continually renewed itself with each passing day.

So, she gave up on emptiness, and reduced her goal to acceptance. All she could hope for now, was to find out what had happened to him after she had left. Pushing his name to the back of her mind, she sought _him_ only in dusty manuscripts in Todai’s libraries, hoping for some glimpse into how his story had ended.

Until yesterday, when a strange call came in from a “high school friend,” when she had heard that name—not _his_ , but someone who was _there_ —she knew what she needed to do.

She would once and for all either learn his story, or be forced to give up hope of ever knowing.

This morning, as if she were again fifteen and ready to head down the well, she loaded her supplies (of a sort) into her backpack: a snack for later, a sweater in case it got cold, a textbook to study on the train, a change of clothes if she needed to stay overnight in Kyoto, some bottles of water, her sealed canister of arrows.

She told Mama that she was headed to Kyoto to see some manuscripts. Her mother’s smile only faltered when she saw the look on her daughter’s face.

“Kagome-chan? Is there something wrong?” 

Kagome had laughed: high and cheery and absolutely false, responding, “Nothing Mama… I just didn’t sleep so well last night.”

Her mother nodded, but only looked partially convinced.

Then, for the first time in a long time, Kagome stopped in front of the huge tree in the courtyard of the shrine, and closed her eyes, thinking of that same tree in another time. Then, breaking her four-year silence, she reached a hand to the scar in the tree’s bark and spoke his name.

“InuYasha.”

In saying that name out loud again after so much silence, Kagome did not know what to feel. So, with her hand on the tree where she had met him centuries ago, she made a decision: to choose, for once, precisely how she would feel about all of this.

She made the choice to use him as her strength. She would draw courage from him as she had done when he was beside her, slaughtering demons, finding jewel shards, looking at the stars in an era she would never see again. 

She would go to Kyoto and find out precisely what happened to him, even if it killed her.

Kagome owed it to him. She owed it to InuYasha.

As the minutes on the Nozomi bullet train slipped by, she allowed herself to feel a faint, and very different kind of hope again. She knew InuYasha would not miraculously be waiting to pull her from the train on the other side, but nevertheless, she had hope for closure. Hope that she could keep his memory and not let it haunt her anymore. Hope to have an ending to his story and lay it to rest.

Today, no matter what, she would find InuYasha.

***


	21. Kagome

**_XXI.  Kagome_ **

Chiyo watched for a girl wearing a red hair bow amongst the throngs of people milling around the platform at Kyoto Station. So far, she had found a girl wearing an elementary school uniform, and a rich looking girl who was dressed in the uniform of a nearby private school.

But no one matching the description of a _miko_ from a Tokyo shrine who studied Japanese folklore at university and had a mysterious connection to _youkai_ seemed to be on the platform.

Finally spotting her, Chiyo realized that Higurashi Kagome was something else entirely.

Looking small and lost amidst the masses of humanity pulsating around her, was a girl with a red bow—not an accessory, a _weapon_ —slung over her shoulder, in addition to an impressively large backpack. 

Trying out a novel way to get her attention, Chiyo flared her aura slightly. Thinking it was a greeting, the other girl, who still hadn’t visually found her yet, flared hers right back.

Chiyo physically staggered a bit when she felt her visitors’ _reiki_. Never in her entire life had she seen an aura that immense. This Higurashi Kagome may not have been called a _miko_ in a very long time, but she was certainly more than worthy of the title. More so than Chiyo herself, probably. 

Across the busy platform, their eyes connected, and the other girl smiled absolutely brilliantly, making her way towards Chiyo, totally oblivious to the fact that several people had noticed her strange luggage and were giving her questionable looks.

Kagome bowed hastily, panting a bit from her jog through the crowd, and introduced herself.

Chiyo did the same.

“Higurashi-san,” Chiyo said, cheerfully, “I thought you meant a hair bow!”

Kagome looked over her bow and laughed. Her expression suddenly became sheepish.

“You said you had a problem with _youkai_ … so I brought it just in case…”

“In case _what?_ ” came InuYasha’s annoyed voice in Chiyo’s head. But, as she knew from first hand experience, that wasn’t actually a polite response to someone who had come to help with _your_ problem.

Chiyo’s mystification increased when her guest added, with a very strained laugh, “…Just a habit, I suppose.”

Bemused, Chiyo led her out of the station, and when they were relatively alone, she very quietly asked, as if she were having a normal conversation about the weather or school or dinner, “Do you deal with _youkai_ very often, Higurashi-san?”

Something changed in Kagome’s tone, almost as if she were trying to close a door against something painful.   She shook her head deliberately, “Not anymore.”

“Forgive me, Higurashi-san,” she said, after they had walked a bit further in silence, passing a crowd of tourists, “I am admittedly quite ignorant of you and your affairs. Prior to a week ago, I had never seen a _youkai_ … just, how did you, well, acquire your particular experience…?”

At this, the other girl burst out into a strained, self-conscious laugh.

“Would you believe me if I told you that when I was fifteen I fell down a well into the Warring States Period and had to defeat an evil _hanyou_ who wanted to possess our shrine’s treasure?” 

_No…?_ was Chiyo’s mental reply.

However, after delivering this, Chiyo noticed the other woman was watching her carefully, while pretending to just breezily take a stroll with a fellow _miko_ through Kyoto. Chiyo reconsidered, and admitted to herself that if she had heard this explanation at any other period of her life, especially from a woman carrying a bow and arrows, she would have thought that the person saying this was absolutely insane and delusional. Or that she herself was insane and delusional. Or perhaps that the world was just broken.

Right now, however, she suspected that this really did make a strange kind of sense, abbreviated though the explanation might be. She did have a mythical _hanyou_ in her living room, after all, and he the two of them had some connection. If she could believe in _youkai_ … why not time travel through magical wells?

Inwardly, Chiyo wondered what had happened to her life that she could make such declarations of belief without so much as reconsidering her sanity.

“Higurashi-san,” she said, with absolute seriousness, “I believe you have caught me on a good week to be believing of such things.”

The other woman relaxed visibly at this, and they walked on in silence. After some minutes passed, a brief glance at her companion told her that Kagome was thinking about something else again. The set of her companion’s eyes and her deep frown, lent the appearance that she was working up the courage to ask something.

Finally, Kagome did.

“Can you contact Sesshoumaru?” 

Chiyo took in her expression for a moment. For whatever reason, a lot seemed to hinge on how Chiyo would respond.

“No,” she said at length. “I’ve only met him the once at my shrine… I wouldn’t know how to find him even if I knew where to look…”

Kagome looked stricken. Wondering if now was the time to tell her about who (or what) she was here to see, Chiyo noticed that the shrine’s steps were quickly approaching. 

“This… Sesshoumaru has left me with a very different problem…” Chiyo stalled. “I think it is best that you just see for yourself…”

Kagome nodded mutely, the haunted look having not quite left her eyes. They both mounted the steps to the Hashimoto shrine.

As they neared the top, Chiyo just hoped she was right about all of this, and they wouldn’t actually be needing that bow after all.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the play on words only exists in English...but I couldn't help myself. :)


	22. Her Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early update...because my readers are awesome. Also, this is one of my favorites.
> 
> Enjoy.

**_XXII. Her Reunion_ **

The strange _miko_ made Kagome wait outside her home for a moment, citing a need to check on something. When she came back out, she whispered, “You need to be very quiet when you come in… I don’t want to, um… startle… him.”

For a girl who didn’t seem to blink at a story of time travel to the Feudal Era through a well, her companion was unexpectedly nervous. Who was she worried would be startled? Perhaps one of her male relations was a high priest who was taking a nap? Was she actually harboring some sort of _youkai_ in her living room?

Concentrating for a moment, she felt an energy she hadn’t felt in years… weak _youki._ It was definitely not a high priest slumbering inside, then.

Kagome silently drew an arrow from her pack before venturing inside. Chiyo frowned at her action, but said nothing.

They entered the dark entrance hallway, but all she could hear was the sound of the television in the other room blaring the theme song to an anime that Souta was rather enamored with at the moment. Without setting down her bow or bag, she removed her shoes as quietly as possible, noting that Chiyo kept looking into the doorway of the other room with a look of deepening anxiety. By the time Kagome’s shoes were off, the other girl was biting her bottom lip.

Seeing Kagome was ready, Chiyo took a deep breath and held one finger to her lips for silence. With another deep breath, she waved Kagome into what must have been the living room of the house.

Inside, the shades were drawn over the windows so that the only light came from the flickering television screen. Kagome noted with a sudden pang, that on the table nearest to her were about five bowls of cup ramen stacked messily.

Kagome looked up, and tamping down the sudden hope and sadness that welled within her, focused on the other woman. Chiyo, with a quiet, almost practiced grace, advanced further into the room, where Kagome noticed a futon had been set out. Chiyo met her eyes, and then, her hand trembling noticeably as she did so, pointed to a figure sprawled out there, apparently in a deep slumber.

Red. Red was the only thing she saw for a moment. Then, her brain telling her that she could not possibly be seeing what she was seeing, she took in a slash of silver. Not trusting herself to breathe, she realized that Chiyo wasn’t just pointing to the man on the futon… no, she was pointing to a set of very distinctive white, _cute_ dog-ears that were on top of the sleeping man’s head.

Before Kagome could speak, because she couldn’t so much as trust her voice when her heart was in her mouth beating furiously, and her mind was just repeating uselessly, as it had practiced and been trained to do… “If _he_ were alive… If _he_ were alive… If _he_ were alive… If _he_ were alive…”, the other woman had knelt down and tweaked one of his—his!— _his!—ears!_

“Woman!” came a raspy voice, as dear to her as her own heart. The red and silver lump defined itself back into the figure of a man who sat up and reached out a clawed hand to catch Chiyo’s wrist, “I _thought_ I told ‘ya not to—“

Then he stopped. Without turning in Kagome’s direction, he dropped Chiyo’s hand and took a surprisingly hesitant sniff of the air. He stopped, almost as if stricken. Then, he turned his head, slowly, almost disbelievingly, towards where she was standing.

Even in a face that was slightly older, slightly more careworn, thinner, and paler than when last she had seen him on that fateful day the well had closed, his eyes were the same.

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Kagome, herself, didn’t know what to say. All she could do was stand there and look at him.

“InuYasha…” she whispered, almost involuntarily. His eyes widened.

And then, she was flying, flying towards him. Somewhere, so unimportant that she didn’t even hear or feel them leave, her bow, a lone arrow, and her backpack clattered to the floor. Then, her arms were suddenly around his neck, tangled in his hair, his head on her shoulder—real, real, _real_ ….so solid and substantial and _real_. She dimly remembered saying his name. Her hands roved over his back, squeezing him, feeling him _be_ substantially there, before she drew back and looked at him again, speechless. 

“Yo,” he said, simply. “Been a while…”

And, for the first time in a very long time, Kagome found hope and laughter bubbling up in her at his response.

“Baka!” she exclaimed with a happiness that was like the sun bursting through clouds. Then she was hugging him again, simply grateful for the feel of his breath on her neck and the feel of his arms around her. 

Then he buried his face in her hair, and simply breathed her name, as if it was an incantation. As if it meant everything.

To Kagome, it did.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	23. His Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More happy! :)

**_XXIII. His Reunion_ **

He would have thought that three hundred and fifty or so years of sleeping would mean that he didn’t have to sleep again for a long while. But, frustratingly, he didn’t seem to be able to do much more than eat a bowl of ramen without needing to nap like a pathetic human.

It made him want to smash something with his claws. 

Too bad he’d probably only be able to snore at his target mid-smashing. That’s if he could even walk out to wherever it was to do the smashing.

That, and the Chiyo woman kept going around on some mysterious business about the shrine and leaving him on his own. He knew that she had been avoiding leaving him here alone, at least until today, probably out of some stupid idea that he needed to be taken care of.

On the second day he was there, in a moment when he had managed to stay awake and the woman had been in a more unguarded and chatty mood, he had asked exactly how far it was to Edo. She puzzled at the name and then asked, warily, “Tokyo?” 

He thought back, his memory hazy in places, to what _she_ had called it. Sounded right.

Combatively, InuYasha nodded.

The girl had punched something into the magic screen that she called a “com-pyu-ta,” and then said, “452.5 kilometers.”

InuYasha had no idea what or how long a “kilometer” was. Nor did he want to ask and get either the girl’s superiority or pity. Bad enough she saw him sleeping and weak and unable to get up from the damn floor without nearly falling on his own face.

He sighed.

Chiyo had regarded him coolly. The damned superiority was coming, he knew.

“In case you’re getting any ideas, it would take about four complete days to walk there. So, for you and your hobbling… like twenty days.”

InuYasha crossed his arms over his face, trying not to let the woman know her remark had hit home.

“ _Keh!_ I could probably do it in two,” he stated.

Then, that woman had _smirked_ at him.

“Do you even know how to get there?”

He tossed his head a bit and responded, loftily, “What’s there to know? You just _go_. I’ve been back and forth between Kyoto and Edo all the time back in the day.”

“Back in the Edo Period?” she said, sarcastically, still typing into her infernal box. “So you know how to dodge cars and trains and not cause accidents, or heart attacks, or make people think you’re a deranged cosplayer?”

_What the hell is a kos-pu-lay-er?_  

“Keh!” he responded. Then, in a grudging tone, he tried to change the subject by requesting ramen. She made a mystifying comment about how so much salt would cause him something called “hypertension” and “heart disease,” but she got up and got it for him anyways.

He almost scoffed that he knew _exactly_ what heart disease was, and that he’d had it for hundreds of years and knew that of all things, it didn’t come from _ramen_. But then she brought him a bowl of noodles, and ignored him as she kept typing on her box.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure how many days had gone by since Chiyo had freed him from under the shrine floor. And honestly, he didn’t want to ask her, because she was going to ask more questions that he couldn’t clearly answer… well, more like didn’t want to answer yet. Most of his days were spent in oblivion as he fell asleep, sometimes in the middle of her chattering sentences.

For all her needling and lofty comments, however, the girl never complained. She didn’t really yell at him much, either. She mostly just made sure he was _comfortable_ and pushed him a bit.

Actually, she was a lot like Chitose.

Maybe one day he would tell her about Chitose. Maybe he would… when he could talk without feeling as if talking equaled the mental exertion of fighting Sesshoumaru for a week straight. He _had_ told her _something_ , because he thought he owed it to her… but, he had said little more than why he was here in the first place in as brief a manner as he could.

If Chiyo was anything like Chitose, she would understand. But she didn’t seem to do that thing where she looked through him, so if she didn’t understand, then he wasn’t about to explain anything more. At least not yet… explaining it would take just too damn much energy.

Above all, InuYasha just wished he would stop being so pathetic and weak, so he could go find _her…_ wherever she was. He hated knowing that when he finally might be able to see _her,_ maybe even hold her, he couldn’t even fucking _move_.

Then, for the first time since he had been there, Chiyo told him she’d be gone from the shrine for a few hours, and then gave him a look that he now recognized as meaning “ _Don’t do anything stupid while I’m out_.”

He gave her a stare that, as near as he could make it, meant, “ _Do I look stupid?”_

Arching an eyebrow in response, she left without putting away that damned futon knowing that he would be out as soon as she left. _Damn wench!_ Out of sheer pride, he left on the TV, so that she would think that he hadn’t been sleeping the _whole_ time.

Rather than watching it, though, InuYasha rolled over on his side. He still couldn’t believe he was back in this time again, and he simply said _her_ name, practicing it, fitting it back where it belonged.

He dreamed of her, and for the first time in centuries, as clearly as if she were in the room with him, he smelled her scent.

So, when the damned _miko_ who had pulled him from his sealed box pulled _again_ on his ear, and then also pulled him from his dream, he had barely held back his waking instinct to thump her.

He growled at her, instead, and then, realizing something, stopped, mid-complaint.

The scent— _her_ scent—hadn’t faded with the dream. Confused, he sniffed cautiously.

Yep… it _did_ smell… like _her…_ it still smelled… like _Kagome_.

Not quite believing it, InuYasha slowly turned his head towards the direction of the scent.

He barely had time to take anything in before, in a blur of color and noise, something—some _one—_ was lunging into him at full force. Instinctively, he tried to step aside, but he was still so damn weak from the sealing he couldn’t avoid the oncoming blur. 

It was then that he realized there was a person attached to the scent.

Then, enveloped as he was by _her_ scent, Kagome’s scent, _his_ _Kagome’s_ scent, he stopped trying to move at all. All he did was say her name and finally, finally, it fit.

With her arms around him, he had never in five hundred years—make that his entire damn life—been so thankful for being weak.

So, in response to her sudden unexpected presence, he did the only thing he had the strength for: InuYasha held Kagome and she held him.

This time, he didn’t plan to let go for anything.

***


	24. Future Tenses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning! Some explicit language.

**_XXIV. Future Tenses_ **

Kagome looked at InuYasha as he slept. Some preliminary explanations had been made, but towards the end, InuYasha had been fighting to stay awake in the midst of both his own story and the questions it raised. He finally succumbed to sleep with his head in Kagome’s lap. 

“It’s so strange to see…” she whispered. “I think I’ve only seen him sleep like that once or twice _ever_ …”

From her perch on the stairs, the other _miko_ smiled.

“I suppose being sealed for three hundred fifty years does that…? He’s getting stronger, though,” responded Chiyo. 

The old mantra played out in her head: _If InuYasha_ _were alive…_

Looking at the slumbering man on her lap, Kagome made a mental shift.

_Since InuYasha is alive…_

However, in truth, she had no idea what their future would hold now. Aside from vague outlines of emotions she hadn’t allowed herself to properly feel in years, and aside from plans to stay in his era with him and build a life… Kagome wasn’t sure how to finish that thought. All of those thoughts had ceased when she had accepted that the well was closed. But, in this time, in this place… what would their future be? 

Kagome sighed, and with a smile on her face, said, “Now what do we do?”

The other _miko_ , now changed into more comfortable clothing, just shrugged.

“That Sesshoumaru guy gave me the impression there was a whole plan worked out.”

Kagome chuckled softly at this, and Chiyo continued, “Of course, he only said about five sentences, so he left me a lot to fill in for myself.” 

Kagome didn’t respond.

Despite InuYasha being palpably and unexpectedly here, the “what ifs” and dark realities that had haunted her over the last five years still hadn’t been laid to rest.

“You know, Hashimoto-san…”

Chiyo smiled, and interrupted her. “ _Please_ , I pulled your boyfriend out of my floor, after my family has been guarding for generations. You can call me just ‘Chiyo’ like we’re the old high school friends I pretended we were.”

Kagome gave her a blushing smile.

“Chiyo- _chan_ ,” she began tentatively, “I never thought…” she paused, taking a deep breath, “I never thought I would see him again.”

Kagome had only ever expected to find Sesshoumaru here. It had never crossed her mind that she would find anything else. She set out from Tokyo on the bullet train this morning looking for closure… some answer to keep the yawning feel of emptiness at bay. Someone who could tell her that _he_ was really dead. Who could tell her how _he_ died. She was prepared herself for that, and that would have been the end of it.

That would finally be her permission from the universe to move on.

But even now, with his head in her lap, his ears twitching at intervals… something didn’t feel real.

But, _since_ InuYasha is alive…

Chiyo stood up and sighing, seated herself on a floor pillow close to the futon.

“I never thought my shrine’s _kami_ would use such vulgar language…”

Kagome laughed, the noise causing InuYasha’s ears to twitch. She clamped a hand over her mouth to silence her mirth; but, oblivious, InuYasha began to make his own noise to interrupt the silence.

Chiyo arched an eyebrow at this cacophony.

“Never expected my shrine _kami_ to snore either. But I suppose I should be used to _that_ after a week of it.”

Kagome merely brushed a wayward silver hair from his cheek. His snoring was interrupted as he grumbled something incoherent. Both women giggled.

“What do I do with you…?” Kagome whispered, her voice still colored with an undertone of disbelief. Taking the sleeve of InuYasha’s _suikan_ in her fingers, she rubbed the rough fabric between them, giving herself a tangible reminder of his existence.

_Because_ InuYasha is alive…

Chiyo, her eyes trained on the sleeping figure in Kagome’s lap, answered the question that Kagome had only meant to be rhetorical.

“Actually, I was thinking about that… since my most esteemed _kami_ doesn’t officially exist in this time period because he is not assigned to any family registry… something should probably be done about that.”

Kagome nodded vaguely.

“And here I thought you didn’t have a plan,” she smiled. 

Chiyo looked thoughtful.

“Sesshoumaru only told me to bring him ‘home’ and that you would help me. InuYasha-sama wouldn’t even give me his name when he woke up on the wrong side of the sealing box, but he did eventually give me _yours_ … that’s how I figured out his home wasn’t so much a place… I knew that you were someone special to him… but I also figured _he_ wouldn’t have a clue as to what he was supposed to do when we found you.”

Kagome felt her cheeks color as she caught the other woman’s meaning.

“And in truth, adding him to _your_ family registry would probably be problematic for future reasons…but adding him to mine shouldn’t be so difficult…I could just make him my older half-brother.”

She blinked at the girl sitting across the table from her, still unconsciously rubbing InuYasha’s sleeve in her fingers.

Not wanting to offend her, Kagome spoke carefully, “So…your father was married before he married your mother…?”

Chiyo gave her a smirk and smiled.

“InuYasha would, unfortunately, have to be my dear father’s illegitimate child. It would explain many things: the strange clothes that he won’t part with could maybe belong to a shrine family, his name can be explained by my father’s known love of Japanese folklore, his rough attitude can be accounted for by the fact he never grew up with a father’s influence in his life…”

The statement was said casually, but forcefully. For a moment, Kagome was reminded of Sango’s determination. Sango, however, would have balked at the stain to her family’s honor. Even in the modern era, producing a father’s “illegitimate” son might raise some questions about the Hashimoto family, particularly in a shrine family like Chiyo’s. Hers was not an offer that should have been made so casually, in Kagome’s opinion.

After Chiyo’s family had already done so much for InuYasha and for _her_ … surely this was too much.

She said as much, but Chiyo, her expression calm and unreadable, merely looked evenly back to her. Then, surprisingly, she rose and she bowed. Suddenly, Kagome was reminded of a thousand images from the Warring States Period…of Kikyou and Kaede, of grace and pride and honor.

Of knowing one’s _duty._  

“It has been my family’s honor and joy to serve as InuYasha-sama’s protectors for generations. And, while, to outsiders’ eyes it may not appear this way, it would be the Hashimoto family’s final honor to be allowed serve him this last time before he leaves our care.”

Chiyo bowed again, continuing on with her formal declaration.

“It would be an privilege to complete our service by making InuYasha-sama a member of my family. My family made a promise to InuYasha-sama, and fulfilling one’s obligations is never dishonorable. And, to me, my father is not one that can be stained. So, Higurashi-sama, please do not fear on our account.”

Overwhelmed by this show of piety, Kagome still had half a mind to protest. But suddenly, she felt the weight of InuYasha’s head lift from her lap.

His attention was solely focused across the table at the other _miko_.

“You’d actually let me join your family, woman?”

Chiyo smirked at him. “Haven’t you been the foundation of my family shrine for hundreds of years, anyways? This would just formalize the relationship in a… less-divine and more, uh, humane.”

InuYasha scoffed outright at this claim.

Kagome, seeing what would happen if she allowed this to continue, said, “But you have to consider—“

InuYasha turned abruptly to face Kagome.

“This one,” he pointed back to Chiyo with his thumb, “is just like her ancestor, the old hag who sealed me. You can’t tell either of them anything once they’ve got an idea in their heads. I don’t think there are any other stubborn fools that are hard headed enough to seal me, and then get me all the way back to you, like they did.”

Chiyo surprised Kagome by smiling brighter, and exclaiming a “Keh!” Then, she winked at InuYasha, “My dear Onii-san, as a stubborn _baka_ himself, will fit right in. 

He folded his arms over his chest, and in a taunting tone replied, “Well, it’s just my misfortune to find a family where stupidity runs through every generation.”

Kagome watched in horror as Chiyo’s eyes glinted and her smirk deepened.

“Yet another trait you share with us Hashimotos! We must have rubbed off on you during all those years.” Then, her smile grew bright and wicked. “And I for one, Onii-san, look forward to adding many more names to the Hashimoto family registry after you join.”

Kagome caught her meaning immediately, and felt the color rise to her cheeks. InuYasha, who was not at all familiar with the legal document being described, scowled at her suspiciously.

“Why? You have more _youkai_ sealed in your shrine I don’t know about?” he said cautiously, looking around suspiciously.

Chiyo just smiled serenely.

“One…Hashimoto Kagome. When _you_ ask her to join us, that is.”

InuYasha stared at her. He slowly began to turn the same color as his _suikan_. Then, feigning utter obliviousness to both InuYasha and Kagome’s evident discomfort and Kagome’s, Chiyo’s look became contemplative, although the gleam never left her eyes.

“Then, I suppose you’ll want to have children...and they’ll be added to your family registry, too…”

The color on InuYasha’s cheeks noticeably deepened.

Smiling so sweetly, Kagome swore she must be some sort of _oni_ in disguise, Chiyo finished, “To have these things…is that not why you sealed yourself in my floor for so long, my dear Onii-san…?”

His face now furiously red, he turned to look at Kagome, then back at Chiyo. He growled low, and then said, “Damn woman, what do _you_ know about it?” 

_Five hundred years and still shy_ , sighed Kagome. _Although, nothing really says “I love you” louder than giving up three hundred some odd years of your life for another person…_

_Words never were his strong point._

Since he was facing away, his arms crossed over his chest in a defiant gesture, InuYasha didn’t see what was coming next. The other _miko’s_ eyebrow quirked up minutely when she saw Kagome begin to move, but she said nothing.

Deliberately, she inched towards the blushing _hanyou_ and wrapped her arms around his waist.

Into his ear, so that only he could hear, she whispered, “I hope she really does know everything.”

Then, with a sidelong glance over to their hostess, InuYasha frowned and whispered seriously back, “I’ll be damned if I let _her_ know anything…she’ll hold it over our heads _forever_.”

Kagome’s heart was too full to respond at that moment, so instead, she just nodded.  

_Because InuYasha is alive,_ she said mentally, _there will be a tomorrow worth having._

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter and an epilogue to go!


	25. Living

**XXV. Living**

It took a lot of calls. And patience. A _lot_ of patience.

Kagome called the university first, saying she needed to take a brief leave of absence to take care of an illness in her family. It was almost technically true. If InuYasha had any sort of family in this era (aside from Sesshoumaru, who she doubted would be appearing any time soon), Kagome was as close as he had.

Her next call was to her family.

Chiyo had made it clear that any respectable shrine family was welcome to stay at the Hashimoto Shrine. Watching as InuYasha devoured his fourth bowl of ramen that day, she quipped, “After _him_ , any other guests would feel like a vacation _._ ”

Mama planned to come, bringing Souta and Jii-chan and necessary supplies the day after Kagome had called them, telling them breathlessly, as if she didn’t quite know what to say, “He’s here…in a shrine in Kyoto.”

Mama had been confused. Maybe because it had been so long since Kagome had even said his name. 

Then, she spoke out loud, for the first time, a sentence that sounded like something between a wish and a dream: “Mama, InuYasha…he’s alive.”

Then, as if reality came crashing down upon her suddenly, Kagome felt the tears she had spent years denying the existence of, spring to her eyes. It was as much as she could do just to hold on to the phone and sob.

Abruptly, the phone was taken from her fingertips and she glanced up to see InuYasha next to her, leaning on Chiyo’s shoulder heavily.

“She’ll have to call you back later,” he said into the receiver.

All Kagome could hear of her mother’s response was a sharp yelp of surprise and her mother saying his name. InuYasha nodded at something she told him and responded, softly, “Yeah, I’ll take care of her. Don’t worry.”

Then, dropping down next to her, he had pulled her into his arms and growled, “Hey, none of that now. You don’t have to cry over me anymore.”

She nodded and buried her head in his chest.

***

While InuYasha gathered his strength, Kagome’s invitation to stay at the Hashimoto shrine was generously and continuously extended.

(Actually, the first time Kagome had hesitantly raised the issue, Chiyo had leaned on the doorframe and quipped dryly, “You really think he’s going to let you leave him?”)

When he could walk and climb the stairs without too much trouble, Chiyo showed them to a large room upstairs. When Kagome tried to return to the guest futon for the night, InuYasha unknowingly echoed Chiyo and growled, “Where do you think you’re going, wench? Last time I let you wander off, you ended up five hundred years away from me.”

With a blush on her cheeks, Kagome relented and settled in on the futon as far from him as possible. Growling brusquely, but blushing just as fiercely himself, InuYasha wrapped his arms around her and drew her into him. That night they slept, anchored together, as if they feared that, as soon as they closed their eyes, the other might vanish. She awoke to the sound of gentle snoring and the feel of his nose resting in her hair.

The next day, Chiyo gave them an obviously made up excuse to make herself scarce and left them alone to talk for entirety of the day.

And so they spoke: About Sango and Miroku. About their children and their life. About their deaths and where their ashes lay. About Kaede and her village. About Shippou and how he might even be out there somewhere, but how he had understandably lost track in the three hundred fifty years he had been functionally dead.

He told her about the _miko,_ Chitose. And, while he had had hundreds of years to deal with the loss of the friends he and Kagome had made during their quest, there was still something raw about the priestess that helped to seal him that Kagome knew not to press yet.

There would be time for that. And it felt so good to _know_ there would be time for it.

When Chiyo finally came back, she had with her a cane, a soft, broad rimmed hat, and a pair sandals.

She smiled wickedly, and stuffed the hat onto InuYasha’s head, stepping back to avoid his weak swipes and admire her handiwork. 

“I thought I’d disguise you an old person. Seemed appropriate.”

Surprisingly, InuYasha took the cane with very little comment, but the shoes had been an argument that Chiyo hadn’t expected. Wisely, Kagome had decided to stay out of it, just watching them with a grin on her face. InuYasha had only very, _very_ grudgingly accepted them after Chiyo had shouted, “Onii-san—you will _not_ shame the Hashimoto family by traipsing around Kyoto like some wild museum antiquity!”

From his nonplussed expression, Kagome knew that, while InuYasha had no idea what a “museum antiquity” was, he certainly understood the concept of honor. Especially after Kagome had taken the time to explain the sacrifice she was making in adding him to her family registry.

The next day, Tessaiga was collected (which had spurred about a half hour more of debate, proving that while InuYasha might have grown older, but, if his bickering was any indication, he hadn’t necessarily grown up…) and then shooed them out with a tourist map and gave her “cute onii-san” some money to have fun sightseeing.

They saw the golden temple of the famous Kinkaku-ji, to which InuYasha remarked that it looked like a temple he had seen a long time ago called “Rokuon-ji.” They laughed when they realized it was actually the same place, just “getting big ideas about itself.”

Their next destination was an Imperial Villa. (Kagome had asked if he had seen it before, too, and InuYasha just gave her a look implying she was insane, and scoffed, “Baka…even I’m not stupid enough to bother the Emperor.”)

They decided to see one more location before returning to the Hashimoto Shrine. According to the tourist map, the Kamo Shinto Shrine dated from the Heian Period, but what interested them wasn’t the shrine itself. (In fact, InuYasha loudly stated that when you had been in the floor of one for several hundred years, you may not want to see another one for several hundred more, which garnered him more than a few stares of confusion). More interesting, was the surrounding so-called “Forest of Correction,” that lay, untouched, from the date of the shrine’s founding.

Walking through the forest was the closest Kagome would ever get to walking in the Warring States Period again. Despite the fact that he growled at his cane, as he limped through the forest with her, Kagome sensed that the primeval serenity of the place had a similar affect on InuYasha.

If he hadn’t been cursing at his cane, she felt that she could have gotten onto his back and run through the ancient trees, feeling as if they were different people, off to find jewel shards in a much different era. Acting on this impulse in his own way, InuYasha insisted on trying to jump onto a sturdy branch of a tree, even though his discarded cane was quite obviously providing a valuable and necessary service in keeping him upright and mobile.

When he failed, Kagome had to try hard to stifle her laughter as he crashed to the ground.

After some soothing of hurt pride, he settled for her climbing into his lap beneath the trees. For a moment, in the silence of that forest, it was as if time had been erased.

“InuYasha,” she said, finally, turning to him. With a pang of recognition, she realized that she had been wrong when she first saw him: what had changed the most about him, were his eyes. They had aged and now matched the ancient forest around them.

“How did you make it back—“ _to me_ “—here?”

He had already explained to her the method. Kagome just hoped he understood what she was _actually_ trying to ask him.

He raised an eyebrow. “Did you give up on me, woman?”

She could have lied. He would have known it, too. But he would have forgiven her, she knew.

“Almost…”

“Why?” There was no anger in his tone. Just curiosity.

“Back then… you were always fighting things. I figured, if you had been here… you would have fought your way back to me like you always did. You would have let me know somehow. But… the well closed, and the years passed and…you never did.”

His arms held her tighter.

“The truth was, Kagome…fighting my way back to you never would have worked.”

He told her how he had decided to give up fighting when the question was posed to him by Chitose. How, if he had gone on like he did when she had first known him, there would have been no way he would be here, with her, right now.

He would have died in some honorable way, on the field of some battle. Really, if he were honest, the way he had chosen was a damned coward’s way—hide and let the rest of the world take its course. He told her how he had walked away from the _miko’s_ suggestion at first for all those reasons.

But, he had come to a realization that made him go through with it.

Which made him a damned coward after all, he guessed.

His next sentence more than spoke for just how much he had changed since they had parted at the Bone Eater’s Well, “But then, I thought, dying was easy, and there are a million ways to do that for no good reason. Depending how you looked at it, fighting could be just as cowardly. So then I thought, what the hell… wanting to live for something… wanting to live for _someone…_ that ain’t cowardly.”

InuYasha buried his face in her hair again, inhaling her scent, reminding himself, she knew, that he had lived, and she was here, and somehow, everything had been worth it. 

“I chose to live, for you, Kagome.”

He had never told her he loved her in so many words. He would never be, she suspected, so comfortable in the modern world that he would take up its conventions of modern love. But, he had trusted her enough—and trusted others on her behalf—to come all this way, against what she had thought was his very nature.

If that didn’t say “love” louder than any words invented could, then Kagome would admit that she had no idea what the word meant.

So, she tilted her head up, and underneath the canopy of the ancient forest, kissed him, sweetly and chastely.

Tears springing to her eyes once more, she whispered, “I’m glad. I’m so glad, InuYasha.”

A clawed thumb wiped the tears on her cheeks away.

“Kagome,” he said gruffly, “I thought I told you that you couldn’t do any of that with me around.”

She nodded, smiling, and merely tucked her head under his chin. 

“I just have to get used to that again.”

And, sitting there with InuYasha, she knew she would.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only the epilogue remains, my friends.
> 
> My beta reader would like it to be known that he sanctions no dates without Tessaiga. We had a spirited argument about the wisdom of bringing a sword on a date in modern Kyoto. Although I won because I am the author, his final summation was "it is just too risky."
> 
> So, dear readers, bring swords on dates. My beta wills it.


	26. Epilogue:  The Tale of the Hanyou and the Miko

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, dear readers, we have come to the epilogue. Please enjoy!
> 
> A reminder...I don't own anything in this fic except for several priestesses whose names begin with "Chi." InuYasha is owned by Rumiko Takahashi and I am honored to play a bit in her sandbox.

**_Epilogue: The Tale of the Hanyou and the Miko_ **

In Kyoto, there is a small shrine that is said to have a strange _shintai_ with an even stranger story attached to it _:_ The rusted _katana_ from the Warring States Period was said to belong to a _kami_ who presided over impossible love. The _kami_ was said to be only sleeping, waiting for a lover who was born out of sync with his own time, destined to be awoken and reunited with her. 

The _miko_ who now watches over the shrine knows the whole story, though.

To tell it, however, she first has tell you the story of another shrine, this one in Tokyo.

_That_ story goes like this:

Once there was a _hanyou_ who was sealed to a tree by a curse. After fifty years, he was awoken by a _miko_ from the future who had fallen down a magic well. Together, they were coerced into a quest. He was pursuing a wish from a magic jewel that she broke. The jewel, as such things do, fell into the hands of evil. In their quest, they gained companions, and after a long road, they defeated the evil and banished the jewel from the world.

But within this story is a smaller story not many know… _hanyou_ were always considered ill-favored beings. They walked the line between the world of humans and the world of _youkai,_ but had a place in neither. The _miko_ also walked between two worlds—the dangers of the Warring States Period and the relative peace and routine of her own modern world. Although their births were separated by five hundred years, they were united by the simple truth that each was born and destined for the other.

After the jewel vanished from the world, the magic of the well had ceased and with it, their way to see each other had also vanished.

_Hanyou_ must protect their very existence through sheer strength and endurance. For, although they are gifted with longevity, their lives were often like fireworks… a brief flash that quickly burned to ash.

Thus, in order to see the _miko_ again, the _hanyou_ pledged he would do what he had always had: Endure, fight, and survive.

And he did just that, in a world that changed around him. It had become a world where _youkai_ had become myths told in the darkness of winter evenings, a world where _hanyou_ were no longer hated by humans… mostly because humans forgot that they even existed, even in their stories.

So, he endured until he could endure no more and then made a brave decision.

He would be a coward. 

He would hide in order to assure that he would survive. He would be a coward if I meant he could see _her_ again.

The _hanyou_ traveled, burdened with time that both easily carried away the few things he had come to possess, and moved on without him.  In Kyoto, he met another _miko_ of prodigious power who proposed an uncertain plan to take him into the future. He agreed and built his own prison, helping her force an arrow into his own flesh, and as he lay still, the world passed him by, none the wiser. 

Unbeknownst to him, his solitary vigil was guarded by a solitary _daiyoukai_. And, generation after generation passed down a legend about a _hanyou_ who loved a _miko_ so much he willed his own living death for a chance to awaken and see her again. These guardians waited for the fateful day when the legend might come to pass.

Then, at long last, it did. One day, a descendant of the original _miko_ pulled the arrow out, reuniting the _miko_ and the _hanyou._

That would traditionally be where such stories end.

However, the _miko_ of the Hashimoto Shrine knows what happens after the legend ends, too.

She knows that those who knew the Hashimoto family for years were surprised by the introduction of her father’s very odd illegitimate son. And how the arrival of this strange man also heralded the arrival of a _miko_ from Tokyo who became notable among Kyoto’s circles for her immense spiritual power. 

When this new _miko_ also became a member of the family, they almost forgave the deceased patriarch his indiscretion.

Indeed, the story tells how Hashimoto InuYasha married Higurashi Kagome under the branches of the sacred tree of the Higurashi shrine. That day, the couple disappeared during the festivities to pay their respects to a place deeper in the shrine grounds where stood simply marked ancient graves. After bowing to these, the groom had to wipe tears from the eyes of the bride. That day, too, at the end of the ceremony, the couple withdrew briefly into the well house of the shrine, the doors closing behind them for a moment of quiet reflection that many of the guests did not understand.

The _miko_ from Kyoto watched on, thinking that this must have been what her ancestor had seen coming so long ago: a love strong enough to last five hundred years… a love more durable than flesh and nature should have allowed. 

A love that refused to fade.

There were many other stories of the _hanyou_ and _miko_ after that. These were not epic stories that altered the course of history. There were no more stories of gems and swords and the defeating of great evil. Those were smaller and more ordinary, the stuff of mere life rather than the stuff of legend. 

But those stories were not the shrine guardian’s to tell.

***

**_Finis_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dearest readers, thank you for taking this journey with me! I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> I haven't written a full fledged fan fic in a long time...and I've been inspired to write at least a few more one shots when I have some time. 
> 
> Thank you, especially, to my lovely beta, the esteemed Earl of Birkenhead. It was a delight arguing with you nightly as you turned some of my more exotic phrases into memes and made a case as to why InuYasha should bring his sword on a date.
> 
> I don't know that I have ever done a stranger array of research for any fic in my repertoire or asked stranger questions about characters...mostly because I have never had to mature characters in isolation over the span of centuries before. So, I asked things like, "would Miroku/InuYasha visit prostitutes?" (this resulted in Miroku's widow and "Comfort and Companionship"). I learned the base level workings of Shinto Shrines. Looking at Sesshoumaru and InuYasha, I had to decide what to do with what would always, in my opinion, be an asymmetric relationship, because I didn't think that InuYasha would let down his pride to reconcile with his brother without severe provocation or intervention. Then, I had to figure how illegitimate children were classified within family registries...In the end, this was all to figure out how on earth an impulsive guy like InuYasha manages to overcome his base level characteristics and survive, despite impossible odds.
> 
> And, (as I rocked out to Hozier's "Work Song," which is the unofficial theme song of this fic) I had a lot of fun figuring out how to do that. It was quite a journey.
> 
> Thank you, once again, for coming with me on it.
> 
> \- sciathan file


End file.
